RE: [unrev-II] A very timely paper

From: Gil Regev (gil.regev@epfl.ch)
Date: Tue Feb 13 2001 - 06:02:42 PST

  • Next message: Jack Park: "Re: [unrev-II] Good-looking KM Seminar"

    Jack, This is a very very nice paper!

    I've seen this kind of thinking many times. One thing Horton doesn't
    explicitly say is that when you mimic some apsect of the physical world in
    an information appliance instead of creating a true metaphore you also run
    the risk of bringing all the constraints from the physical world into the
    computer. An example I've seen many times is a PC based phone/answering
    machine that has a redial button but doesn't allow you to edit the phone
    number. Virtual buildings where you have to take the stairs or an elevator
    to go from one floor to the other instead of instantaniously jumping to it.

    I believe, however, that we hit a very basic human limitation here. This
    limitation prevents most of us most of the time from imagining truely new
    ways of doing things. Otherwise, we would know immediately how to bypass
    horseless-carriage thinking. How about creating a tool to overcome this?

    Gil

      -----Original Message-----
      From: Jack Park [mailto:jackpark@verticalnet.com]
      Sent: vendredi, 9. fevrier 2001 18:04
      To: unrev-II@yahoogroups.com
      Subject: [unrev-II] A very timely paper

      http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2000/horton/Horton.pdf
      <http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2000/horton/Horton.pdf>
      It's a pdf so I cannot cut and paste. A brief summary goes like this:
      He talks of the history of ideas, including humorous grand faux pas, like
      Gates' famous "640k ought to be..."
      He talks of metaphors in information appliances.
      He talks about games rather than lectures.
      He talks about discussion rather than publications.
      The title of his paper is "Horseless Carriage Thinking."

      I strongly recommend reading this publication :-)

      Jack

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