I think Norman, has done some interesting things, and I think the article has definitely provoked some nice, and healthy debate, but I have to agree that he's using the straw man tactic.

Everytime a read a Norman piece, and I always leave thinking, "Hmm ... that was interesting ... from a psychological perspective." Norman isn't a classically trained designer, and it shows in his writings.

However, I do think there's something to be said for what is constituted as "innovation", and i think you are spot, when you talk about "technologists" innovating and not looking farther into the future, and causing havoc because they didn't even try to look ahead at how their artifacts might be used. That's exactly what designers are great at seeing, and not necessarily technologists.

Designers are all about looking towards the future and trying to understand how the checks and balances will be affected by our designs.

Nice article.

Have you ever heard "Talk with Chippy " ?

Let me tellyou something about him.It's the newest application on the iPhone and Ipod market. His cute little figur ans his so lovely voice will make your day.

Have a look on it,try it and convince yourself about what this chipmunk is able to do.

I bet you will have lots of fun:)

[edit by arvind, fixing link]
"Talk with Chippy" is available on the following link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/talk-with-chippy/id362084375?mt=8

I like the perspective offered by Dourish a great deal, probably because I used ethnomethods for my PhD dissertation. Regarding the point about email though, the best application I've seen was Six Degrees from Creo back at the turn of this century (I love being able to use that phrase ;-)

Here is something I wrote about Six Degrees a few years back in a discussion about the tendency of knowledge management applications to support organizational control and management hierarchy.

"Creo has a desktop application which I have been beta testing for the past couple of months. It is called six degrees, kind of a pun off the small world hypothesis. Anyway, six degrees loads on your desktop and scans your email application for the messages stored there, the people who sent them and received them, and any file attachments. It then builds a view of all your messages across folders (specified by the user) to let you look at your mail folders according to common people, common files, or common messages. It is an ideal application for enabling individuals to view their personal communication network across folders and, by implication, projects. Anyway, to make a long story short, there are no collective views of this information. So, it is
one of those unique IT resources that empowers the user but not management."

Unfortunately, Six Degrees was discontinued and Creo, I believe, was acquired.

hi!

it's funny - there's this bar in sacramento - Fanny Ann's - which has the bathroom signs that point to the other door - so the "women's" room door actually has the "male" alligator. (I have no idea why alligators, but) it's all fun and games until some damn drunk guy walk into the women's room. happens all the time!

the pics you have above from Barcelona - they're Basque icons of Amuma and Eichicha (gramma and grampa). Every Basque home has them.

Interesting post.

Gibbs: yes, I think there's something about the bite-sized nature of Twitter that makes it more free-flowing and encourages thinking about the various implications of small units of information.. akin to workshops we hold where we guide our clients (usually a mixed team of engineers, managers, designers, user researchers) through going from small chunks of data to consensus on design solutions and approaches.

hahah i liked the comparison better!

I would almost agree, except that the thing they seem to be selling is themselves: the shell is one of the hotel's insignia, and the magazine has completely GQish content in it. I couldn't figure out what it was I was supposed to buy or buy into, other than some strange new age-y feel-good about the hotel.

[After the third day, when I placed the tray aside and put a book on top of it, it was not moved back to the bed. I wonder if there's an instruction somewhere that says "don't touch their stuff"]

It's no less tolerable but perhaps easier to understand if you consider that all the crap placed strategically throughout the room is there for persuasion, to "sell" something to you. I don't think it's about welcoming at all. Here's my example http://www.portigal.com/blog/forced-engagement/

Excellent! A McCracken-worthy post!

Nice categorization. There's another flickr photo pool, Gender Signs.

It's just (purposefully) misleading. Would have been more interesting with a a third choice:

(c) Linda is active in the feminist movement.