“Augmenting tools are comforting; for they leave the decisions about activities to people” Opposed to Autonomous things “that attempt to infer the intentions of people”.
Norman in this chapter talks about smart homes that can remind us of our daily tasks; help us make decisions; keep us informed about the happening in the house and what not.The readings this week intrigued me to explore Smart home technologies and to my surprise I found galore of information on the internet. Homes that can help you make wise decision about the clothing you should wear depending on the weather outside. The walls that can transform according to the whims and fancies of the person staying inside....
An aesthetically designed kitchen with an island which is a computerized, a digital notice board that informs about the resources that are being consumed in house, it makes a list of grocery that can be negotiated to the smart phone......
Norman talks about two different homes, one that makes people smart and the other that is smart by itself. According to me the former is built around the principles of augmented technologies while the later is autonomous. Given a choice I would prefer to stay in a house which uses augmented technologies because in that case I have a choice to make my own decisions the technology just helps me meet my desire. However in the case of autonomous houses the technology will not sense my desire rather it will just track my physical motions and act accordingly. I feel what Norman wants to put forth here is that automation rules out the possibility of human involvement in controlling technology further empowering the technology over humans. Whereas augmentation, still helps us retain the symbiotic relationship between technology and humans.
thanks for reading
Fun Moments
17 years ago
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