Paper Reading #3 - Hard-To-Use Interfaces Considered Beneficial (Some of the Time)

Comments:
Keith Farinella
Jorge Perez

Refrence Info:
Hard-To-Use Interfaces Considered Beneficial (Some of the Time)
Yann Riche, Nathalie H. Riche, Perta Isenberg, Anastasia Bezerianos
CHI 2010, April 10-15, 2010, Atlanta, Gerorgia, USA
 
Summary:
This article dealt with the mostly overlooked importance of hard-to-use interfaces. The article gave two examples in which the benefits stood out to make for an excellent and positive observations. The first was a series of task to be preformed bu users at the same time using different mice and pointers. There was also an issue with the computer where if more than one user moved the pointer, the mouse would deviate from its location, causing trouble when attempting to use it. This problem caused users to communicate effectively to work around the issue and be able to complete tasks. Methods such as waiting for others to finish or asking others to wait were effective communicated and increased the dynamic of the group. The second example given deals with a study done on the elderly to teach them how to use more up-to-date technologies, such as e-mail, for a way of communicating. After the course was over and the elderly were taught, they said that they still preferred the harder-to-use interface of manually writing a letter out because it is more personal than just an e-mail message. The group valued the emotional connotation behind the letter opposed to the impersonal e-mail.

Discussion:
This article illustrates the importance of research done and what we can get out of it. In this case, the research was being done in one area, and ended up getting results for another area. It also teaches us to learn not only from our positive data but the negative as well opposed to just discarding whatever caused the negative data. Although I do agree that communicating with team members is important, I feel that computer are a tool to aid in that, and not be the root problem to force individuals to communicate. In this scenario the solution as the problem. I also agree that when dealing with elderly, it is always going to be difficult to change their minds, especially with technologies. They might just use the excuse of impersonal communication to say "we don't like it!".