The paradox of technology should never be used as an excuse for
poor design. It is true that as the number of options and capabilities of
any device increases, so too must the number and complexity of the
controls. But the principles of good design can make complexity manageable.引自 The Paradox of Technology
If an error is possible, someone will make it. The designer must
assume that all possible errors will occur and design so as to minimize
the chance of the error in the first place, or its effects once it gets
made. Errors should be easy to detect, they should have minimal
consequences, and, if possible, their effects should be reversible.引自 Falesly Blaming Yourself
Find an explanation, and we are happy. But our explanations are
based on analogy with past experience, experience that may not apply
in the current situation......Once we have an
explanation—correct or incorrect—for otherwise discrepant or puzzling
events, there is no more puzzle, no more discrepancy. As a result, we
are complacent, at least for a while.引自 The Nature of Human Thought and Explanation
Seven stages of action: one for goals, three for
execution, and three for evaluation.
• Forming the goal
• Forming the intention
• Specifying an action
• Executing the action
• Perceiving the state of the world
• Interpreting the state of the world
• Evaluating the outcome引自 How People Do Things: The Seven Stages of Action
Precise behavior can emerge from imprecise knowledge for four
reasons.
1. Information is in the world.
2. Great precision is not required.
3. Natural constraints are present.
4. Cultural constraints are present.引自 Knowledge in the Head and in the World
Errors come in several forms. Two fundamental categories are slips and mistakes. Slips result from automatic behavior, when subconscious actions that are intended to satisfy our goals get waylaid en route. Mistakes result from conscious deliberations. The same processes that make us creative and insightful by allowing us to see relationships between apparently unrelated things, that let us leap to correct conclu- sions on the basis of partial or even faulty evidence, also lead to error.引自 To ERR is Human
We can place slips into one of six categories: capture errors, description errors, data-driven errors, associative activation errors, loss-of-activation errors, and mode errors.引自 Types of slips
Today, in the developing field of cognitive science, two different views are emerging. The traditional view considers thought to be ratio- nal, logical, and orderly; this approach uses mathematical logic as the scientific means to explain thought. Adherents of this approach have pioneered the development of schemas as the mechanism of human memory. A newer approach is rooted in the working of the brain itself. Those of us who follow this new approach call it "connectionism," but it also goes under the names of "neural nets," "neural models," and "parallel distributed processing." It is an attempt to model the way in which the brain itself is structured, with billions of brain cells con- nected into groups, many cells connected to tens of thousands of oth- ers, many all working at the same time. This approach follows the rules of thermodynamics more than it does the rules of logic. Connectionism is still tentative, still unproven. I believe that it has the potential to explain much of what puzzled us before, but part of the scientific community thinks that it is fundamentally flawed.引自 THE CONNECTIONIST APPROACH
That decision tree for chess is even wider and deeper—wide in the sense that at each point in the tree there are many alternatives, so that the tree spreads out over a considerable area; deep in the sense that most branches of the tree go on for a considerable distance.
Everyday activities don't require the kind of complex analyses re- quired for something like chess. In most everyday activities, we need only examine the alternatives and act. Everyday structures are either shallow or narrow.引自 Wide and deep structures
The same powers that make us so good at dealing with the common and the unique lead to severe error with the rare.引自 Conscious and subconscious behaviour
