Information Appliances:
Why the PC is so complex, Why it can't be changed and Why
Information Appliances are the Solution
Donald
Norman
Appliance Design Center, Consumer Products Group
Hewlett-Packard
http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~norman
Thomas Edison was a great inventor, but a crappy
businessman. Consider the phonograph. Edison was first (he
invented it), he had the best technology, and he did a
brilliant, logical analysis of the business. As a result, he
built a technology-centered phonograph that failed to take
into account his customer's needs. In the end, his several
companies proved irrelevant and bankrupt.
Sound familiar? That's today's PC business. There are
even more parallels. Speak of ease of use: It was judged to
be too complicated for office use. The early phonograph took
about two weeks to master, if you were willing to persevere.
Today's computers take even longer. In general, whether it
is the phonograph or the computer, the technology is the
easy part. The difficult parts are social, organizational
and cultural.
Note that the phonograph went through a number of major
revolutions in its lifetime. Cylinders. Disks. Acoustical,
electrical. When the radio came out, it almost killed the
phonograph business. 78 RPM to 33 1/3 and 45 RPM. Cassette
tapes. CDs, mini-discs. DVD, And so on. If you compare the
computer industry to the phonograph one, we are still
producing 78 RPM shellac discs.
The PC is like that first phonograph. Too complicated,
the wrong business model, and a growing source of
frustration to those who are forced use it. It is time for
the third generation of the PC, the one where they disappear
from sight, invisibly incorporated into information
appliances.
This talk addresses the changes we might expect to see in
the information technology world. And the process by which
they might come about.
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