Grudin at SI
Today, I attended a talk by Jonathon Grudin - well half a talk actually, I had to head off to class halfway through the talk, but the talk was pretty interesting.
Having had a couple of his readings as course readings ( groupware, is hci homeless? ) it was interesting to see what he had to say in person.
I liked the way in which he put spoke of the history of hci from a very practical point of view; He spoke quite a bit about how the research fields in hci have evolved based on technological innovations. At the very beginning he asked all the people in the room where they stood in relation to technology shaping human behaviour and living:
The four categories were
1. hard determinism - firm believer that tech determines the way we live
2. soft determinism
3. co-determinism
4. no determinism
He saw himself somewhere 1.5 :) . Prof. Judy Olson - 1 :), Prof McQuaid 3 with two hands up !!!
I, like the majority was 3.
Also, he said most of the places he asked this question there was one brave person who said 4 - none at SI though !
It was interesting to note how people who had actually done considerable amounts of research were quite convinced that technology significantly DETERMINED the way we live. I wonder if its a cyclic realationship of cause - i.e. because they study its influence so much they believe it influences us so much ?
Having had a couple of his readings as course readings ( groupware, is hci homeless? ) it was interesting to see what he had to say in person.
I liked the way in which he put spoke of the history of hci from a very practical point of view; He spoke quite a bit about how the research fields in hci have evolved based on technological innovations. At the very beginning he asked all the people in the room where they stood in relation to technology shaping human behaviour and living:
The four categories were
1. hard determinism - firm believer that tech determines the way we live
2. soft determinism
3. co-determinism
4. no determinism
He saw himself somewhere 1.5 :) . Prof. Judy Olson - 1 :), Prof McQuaid 3 with two hands up !!!
I, like the majority was 3.
Also, he said most of the places he asked this question there was one brave person who said 4 - none at SI though !
It was interesting to note how people who had actually done considerable amounts of research were quite convinced that technology significantly DETERMINED the way we live. I wonder if its a cyclic realationship of cause - i.e. because they study its influence so much they believe it influences us so much ?
Comments