Beyond formalism: The art and science of designing pliant...

Google TechTalks March 10, 2006 Austin Henderson Abstract: The past decades have seen huge improvements in computer systems but these have proved difficult to translate into comparable improvements in the usability and social integration of computers. I believe that the problem is a deeply rooted set of assumptions about how computer systems should be designed, and about who should be doing that design. Human organizations are continually evolving to meet changing circumstances of resource and need. Central to the problem is the approach that technologists adopt to the design of "systems": by training, interest and practice, they instinctively separate the technical system from its context of...