Signs that bother me

There are often hand written  or hand typed signs that just on a really basic level just bother me in some way.

The current one is in the toilets at work. It says:

"Please leave these toilets in the state that you expect to find them"

Firstly, I do understand that at a basic level it is saying don't make a mess and leave it tidy.

On a whole other level I am afraid that I cant possibly comply with the notice. If I did I would be forced to redecorate the toilet in order to create a brand new toilet that I would expect to find.

To illustrate my point, this is a typical toilet:

From howstuffworks.com

Now if I was to leave the toilet in the state I expect to find it, I might redecorate to give a more tropical feel to the throne room.

http://www.oneprojectcloser.com/tropical-bathroom-design/

Or perhaps improve the entertainment possibilities to add entertainment that I would expect to find.

http://www.lolgallery.com/best-toilet-ever/

Perhaps you get the general idea.

Thought Experiment: Driverless automated cars

In the linked article you can read about driver less pods at Heathrow airport that take passengers from the car park to the terminal. Driver less automated pods are certainly part of the future, one day they may even replace ordinary cars on ordinary roads.

However here is a thought, a driver less pod will always be programmed to stop for a pedestrian / obstruction as the whole point in driver less pods is to prevent accidents. This all sounds very sensible and logical but what happens when pedestrians know they can never be hit by a car. Simple, they will step out into the road without looking as they know any car will stop and they cannot be hurt.

Now extend this thought, which basically means that pedestrians now have priority. In towns and cities pedestrians would reclaim the streets, traffic would be brought to a stand still and the whole fabric of society would break down. Ok maybe not that last part.

So if cars are no longer dangerous pedestrians would no longer be wary of them. You could either

a) Trust pedestrians to do the right thing - make it socially unacceptable.
b) Allow cars to be slightly dangerous again.
c) Make it a serious criminal offence to cross the road when a driver less car is coming.
d) Or another option which I haven't yet thought of.

Its an interesting thought which may have to be solved before driver less cars go mainstream.

Humanistic design - Part 2

In a previous article I wrote about how we associate different sounds with different objects and even when those sounds are no longer made due to developments in technology we still associate the sound with a quality product. Thus product designers add these sounds back in artificially so that we continue to make the quality connection.

Partly this is due to the human failing of not feeling comfortable with change. The absence of something that has always been there makes us feel slightly uncomfortable even though we may not fully make the connection between what is missing and the feeling. A good example of this is yesterday when I was driving home the car sounded different, the engine noise was different, I started wondering whether there was anything wrong with the engine, was it as responsive as normal, I started to feel uncomfortable.

The answer to this ,which dawned on me eventually, was that I had forgotten to turn the radio on. So I turned it on and everything returned to normal.

Now imagine a day when I get into my first electric car, I turn the engine on and apart from a click, there is no noise, I will feel slightly uncomfortable. I might not even buy the car if I was looking for a new one. This for designers is the ultimate nightmare.

So they are looking at making electric cars sound like traditional cars with engine noises. For two reasons, one is that the driver wont be put off buying them and secondly that a pedestrian can hear the car coming. When you can choose the engine noise or download the latest engine noise from the internet things might feel a bit weird.

For sports car models they are even thinking about creating a throaty engine roar, as after all, everyone knows the best sports cars have the throaty roars.

How engineers create artificial sounds to fool us (BBC)

Anyway I digress, the whole point of this article was to post an interesting follow up to my original article. The BBC have posted up a similar article with a few extra quotes and examples.

The car door example is one I found very interesting as Professor Cox is right, car doors should have a solid clunk to them. There have even been advertising campaigns based around the sound of the closing car door clunk.

I also love the fact that Harley Davidson are quoted as saying they won in the court of public opinion. In other words technically they didn't win according to the law.  Anybody can win a popularity context without being great at what they do, or right, or talented just check out the numerous winners of various reality talent competitions.

A Human Psychology Premise

This is something I was discussing on-line in some high brow chat room. Yes, they do exist if you know where to look.

The discussion was about morality and whether a moral issue was black or white. My argument was that no issue could be purely black or white because of the human factor, in reality every issue was a shade of grey. It could perhaps look black or white but if you looked really closely there would be a hint of white or a hint of black.

There is a test for this premise:

"For a moral issue to be pure black or white every (sane) person on the planet must unanimously agree that it is so."

Now as no moral issue can pass this test moral issues can only be a shade of grey.

Now before anyone says what about this, just think would every single person in the world agree that it was 100% right or wrong.

I am not saying you cant get close I am just saying you will never be spot on. It is a hypothetical thought premise, nothing more nothing less. It really doesn't effect whether a moral issue is inherently good or inherently bad. All the premise really states is that you cant have unanimous verdict only a significant majority verdict.

Conservative Liberals or Liberal Conservatives?

Is the new coalition government of the UK made up of Conservative Liberals or Liberal Conservatives. I personally think they are Liberal Conservatives. The question in my mind is if that judgement is based on what I believe to be their politics or the sometimes unnatural rules of the English Language.

In option 1 I think that the politics are generally Conservative yet tempered by liberalism hence Liberal Conservatives.

In option 2 the majority subject goes second and then the descriptive effector comes first hence Liberal Conservatives.

Of course with the power of the mighty google I can check out the most popular term.

Search term: Conservative liberals uk

About 8,430,000 results

Search term: Liberal Conservatives uk

About 8,390,000 results

Oh, a very narrow victory for Conservative liberals. Probably proves absolutely nothing but it was an interesting thought for the day.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

I re-read this book recently, it is a work of fiction which introduces the premise / theory that the environmental lobby is just another method by the establishment to keep us in a perpetual state of fear, following on from the cold war came global warming. This state of fear creates spending and political power but the book using scientific references to support the fictional plot suggests that global warming is at best inconclusive and suggests that we are yet to learn so much about are environment that any theory about global warming is little more than a guess.

However as the character in the book suggests just because you don't agree with global warming doesn't mean that you don't want pollution controls and CO2 reduction. I have to say Michael Crichton creates a compelling argument. One of the best simple comparisons is that despite all the investment and technology we cannot accurately predict the weather beyond 5-10 days so how can we consider a prediction for a 100 years hence to be accurate.

There are loads of other rational arguments in the book but with the alternative view I find it difficult to believe that global warming is a global conspiracy. I suppose one of the problems is that until it happens we wont know whether everyone is right or wrong.

The precautionary principle also mentioned in the book means that if there is the slightest change of the catastrophic scenario occurring then we should not take the action that would cause it. Therefore the precautionary principle would suggest that because scientists have found a potential risk we should do everything to eliminate it. However you could use the precautionary principle to say we should live 50 ft underground all the time because every time you go outside there is a risk of a plane falling on your head.

Then I reach the thought in my head that says "Do I believe in global warming?". Then my second thoughts kicks in and realises the framing of the question suggests there is a belief factor rather than relying on cold, hard, undeniable facts and truths.

"Do I believe in doing something to protect the environment?". No facts required this time but how do you protect an environment, again it raises in the book that you can only manage an environment and we still don't know how to manage land to protect something. The ecosystems around us are ever changing we cant protect and preserve but we can manage it in a direction. In the books it talks about nature not having a balance but oscillating between different factors as species rise and fall.

Finally the book finishes with the premise that they should set up a new environmental group which basically looks for problems and fixes it, so take land management, you accept you do not know how to do it, so you take 8 similar parcels of land, have a different management policy in each one. Try things out get them evaluated by outside consultants and by trial and error find out what land management policies work and don't work.

One character talks about scientific journal authors talking about simulations as if they were real world data and suggest that such articles should be labelled "Warning: Computer Simulation - May be erroneous and unverifiable" and then suggests a label for newspaper articles as well "Warning speculation - may be fact free".

I have long argued about labels for news articles, some kind of evaluation of the source:

How about this the Zephryist- Morton coding
(the highest number would be taken in each code)

8 - Video evidence
7 - Sound evidence
6 - Multiple eye witness accounts
5 - conflicting eye witness accounts with some commonality
4 - Single eye witness account
3 - written evidence
2 - Multiple eye witness conflicting accounts
1 - 2nd hand source no eye witness accounts
0 - opinion only no verifiable witness 1 or second hand

4 - Known as giving previously reliable evidence
3 - No previous record of evidence
2 - Questionable record of giving reliable evidence
1 - interpretation of known facts with own opinion on conclusions or extrapolation
0 - own opinion - few known facts with open interpretation.

3 - Expert / professional in field
2 - Media expert in field
1 - Amateur in field
0 - Unknown knowledge status in field.

So with this you could evaluate any news source such as the BBC news website which would be a 8 by 4 by 2 site, one of the highest rating with video evidence, known to give reliable evidence in the past, and with media experts.

You could also rate a blog, my highest rating would be a 4 by 4 by 1 unless you felt I was merely giving opinion where my blog would be rated 4 by 1 by 1. Of course with a fully functioning system the ratings would be given by peers.

The beauty of the system is that the lower the number the more questionable the source, it would help any reader instantly be able to separate fact from fiction without having to read pages of previous articles and compare them with other sources to determine the reliability, with a peer reviewed system other people have already done the leg work.

You could go further and break down the rating system more by breaking each section into a series of questions almost an acid test of reliability.

I may return to this some day or like many other posts on my blog it may just be a random thought that sits on the shelf collecting dust.

The misconstruing BBC news article game

I may have invented a new game. All you need is to look on the news pages of the BBC, I use the top 10 article lists. Pick an article title and come up with an alternative story behind the headline.

So for example from today:

WHO warns swine flu 'unstoppable'

I did not realise the rock band "the Who" were experts in pandemic viruses.

I may post some more as I see them.

Earth Day - 22 April

Today April 22 is Earth Day and in the usual way I find out about these things it was because Google has redesigned their logo for the day.

According to wikipedia earth day is a day to inspire awareness and appreciation for the earth's environment. First observed in 1970 now it hardly breaks the news (at least round here, except google of course).

So lets take a second and think of something beautiful in our environment that we might want to protect for future generations.

For me the humble cherry tree and the humble bumble bee, two things that are natures marvels and without protection, life would be a little bit less bearable. I for one would not want to be old telling my grandchildren that in my youth we had cherry trees with blossom just like confetti and we had bees that went buzz and made honey. If that future comes to pass, as an old man I could not bear to speak of what precious things we took for granted and lost on the tarmac path to progress. In my old age I want to sit under the cherry tree letting the blossom fall against my wrinkled skin as the bees buzz round the granchildren and me. I would want to reflect on the sea change in the first few years of the 21st century that lead to sustainable growth policies which worked in harmony with nature.

Christmas Box

I am all in favour of starting Christmas traditions and this one is one I am going to start this year.

To give a bit of background this comes out of several discussions about what I might want for Christmas. I like to think of simple presents for Christmas and I have fairly low expectations.

For my Christmas to be complete all I need are three things a good fiction book, a nice pair of socks and a bar of chocolate. As long as I get that I am content.

Christmas Box

This is a modern day version of a stocking.

1. The book must be a novel, no non-fiction allowed.

2. The socks must be nice and warm, no novelty or Christmas socks allowed.

3. The chocolate must be large and suitable for eating with the book.

No other items are allowed in the box. They must all be put in a box and wrapped up, outside decoration is left up to the gift giver.

The end of the world as we know it..

OK may be not quite the end of the world but the end intellectual debate and the dumbing down of the English language.

I am designing some new assessment materials at work based around communication skills, part of the folio is some group discussions. These group discussions have now gone out to consultation with our partner groups and I am collating the feedback.

One topic included the world "eradicate", one comment has suggested that we use the word "remove" instead, as people may not understand the word "eradicate".

I am all in favour of not over complicating things, I started nodding and thinking what a good piece of advice that was. Then I had one of those record screeching moments where the needle is taken off the record scratchily (that reference probably lost 90% of the audience but I shall struggle on, if you are not sure what a record is try wikipedia). If someone doesn't know a word it is not cruel or unfair to use it or a reason for me to change it, that is a reason for someone to pick up a dictionary or use the internet to look up the meaning.

To me the two words have distinctly different meanings so I feel it is important to use eradicate. The English language is currently rich with many great words for all occassions, we should not reduce it to a language where there is only one word for everything. What next, get rid of blue and call it light black, where do we stop, eradicate is a good word and I say it stays.

"Say no to the eradication of eradication"

My point is that everyone, if they dont know something should take the opportunity to learn and look it up. It should never be that if people dont know something its the other persons fault for not using the right word. Individuals need to take responsibility, develop themselves and protect the richness of the english language.

Another comment was that I cant use a discussion topic about insurance because some people might not understand the concept. Well if they dont that should form part of the discussion and if they dont, why dont they? Insurance is virtually fundamental to several aspects of life and surely it is a fairly simple concept. Even if you cant explain how insurance works you know about premiums, claims and have a vague knowledge of risk. Again we shouldnt avoid discussing things because people might not know, the things people don't know are the exact things we should be discussing. Humanities job is to learn and develop, there is nothing wrong with ignorance if you do something about it, if you ignore it and hope it goes away then the only person you are failing is yourself.

End of moan, join me next week when I tell you about the new course I have been on, "Effective moaning for professionals". Apparently it even comes with roleplays.

I have been thinking...

I have been thinking about one thing that will change the world. I have a spare £1 in my pocket and know that there are 60 million other people in the UK that have a spare £1.

Effectively then I have £60 million to make a small change to make the world a better place. I have £60 million because while some will give none a lot of people will give more.

So one small gesture to create a big gesture, to change the world.

If you expand that premise to the world there are 6.7 billion people so £6.7 billion to make an even bigger gesture.

The question is what could you invest £6.7 billion in, to really fundamentally change the world for the better for everyone.

£1 to change the world 6 billion reasons to do it.

Notes:

There is a part of me that wants to write in a post ironic modernism type of way after the above article "Zephyrist Aged 10 and a half". There is a certain idealistic naivety to the article that the entire population of the world could unite to make one change when often charities struggle to get just a few people to donate money.

There is another part of me that says the only people that have ever changed the world are the idealistic dreamers. They dare to dream the impossible, somehow and no one quite knows how, it becomes possible.

Leadership is about creating new realities, drawing people in and breaking down barriers. Great leaders dream both the dream and of how to make it a reality.

One thing I do know is that if you never think of something or never say it out loud you have strangled the dream at birth.

The ten and a half reference harks back to childhood where nothing is impossible, all the bad things don't exist and we can do anything if only we set our minds to it. Growing up is about finding out there are barriers whether in skill or talent or just what seems like luck. However much we want something sometimes it just wont happen.

At times like that it is easier to get cynical and look negatively at things. There is no point applying for that job, I wont even get an interview and they are probably not looking for someone like me. However, if you don't try, how do you really know you will fail. Even if you cant imagine the possibilities, all of them are out there.

Maybe I can't change the world all by myself but maybe if I keep generating ideas someone will pop along, pick it up and run with it.

Our only limitations are the limitations we impose on ourselves.

Project 10 to the 100th

I saw this ages ago on the google home page, Google are running a competition, in their words:

"Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible."

I have entered one entitled:

"Help local people develop local sustainable energy projects through local resident run co-operatives."

You never know, one day it might just change the world.

If you have a world changing idea why not swing by google and submit it.

Office Productivity Tip

Its ages since I have written about anything office related.

I don't know about you but my email box is very busy and can get full very quickly. One of the great things I have found to stop emails disturbing my work is to turn off the automatic notification features. After all does any email really need to be looked at instantly, if it does then the sender is communicating badly as they should pick up the phone. Email may be a convenient way of communicating but it isn't an urgent method, if someone needs to contact me urgently they should pick up the phone, but be warned I screen my calls. I certainly don't feel the need to pick up a ringing phone.

Anyway by turning off the automatic notification I only look at my emails a couple of times an hour rather than the up to 14 times an hour I get an email, result better focus and concentration on other stuff I am actually doing and productivity increases.

Trust me, give it a go and see if it works for you.

Envelope Psychology: 'See you soon' or 'See you later'

Question:

What do you most often say, or which of the following phrases would you use?

"See you soon."

OR

"See you later."

Theory:

Which phrase you use or choose says something psychological about your personality. Well it might do, I am not sure but this is my notes from the back of the proverbial envelope.

See you soon.

You have a nurturing personality. Usage of this phrase suggests an emotional attachment to the subject and it acts as a reminder both to you and them that you care. This is predominantly but not exclusively use by females who tend to be more emotive in their language. It also suggests that you fully intend to see them and may already in your mind be making plans to do so.

See you later.

You have a more pragmatic, practical personality. Usage of this phrase is slightly dismissive in that the meeting is at an end but we will meet again later at some unspecified point which is not guaranteed. This is predominantly but not exclusively used by males who tend to be more pragmatic in their language. It does not suggest that a further meeting is expected and certainly no thought has been given to a future meeting but such a date may already have been arranged or will be in the future.

Disclaimer:

I base the above on limited anecdotal evidence but I am open to a debate of the issues. I myself use "See you later" and know at least two female friends who always use "See you soon". I realise this is not conclusive evidence but it did make me pose a theorem.

Something I could really use right now

You would be forgiven that I might be in desperate search of aspirin to cure the over indulgence of Christmas. You would be mistaken, instead I am looking for something to save me from the repetitive adverts from the likes of B & Q, Debenhams and PC World.

Unless you have been on another planet since Christmas Eve (in which case lucky you) every television advert has been full of the delight of the post Christmas sales. Several companies have gone for the brain washing technique of playing repetitive adverts again, again and again, until the entire advert is seared into the back of your eyes.

It has reached the point where I feel the need to buy something, anything just to make the adverts go away. Surely such adverts are outlawed under the Human Right Acts, surely such repetitive brain washing could be described as a 'cruel and unusual form of torture'.

There would be a market for a widget attached to your TV, which if you scanned a recent receipt from the said company the TV would play soothing pictures of animals at play or some other screen saver type advert instead of the insistent screaming to 'buy, buy, buy' before time runs out.

There has to be a research paper in this somewhere. Even if I ask my readers to name without thinking 3 retail organisations that have a sale starting after Christmas with massive bargains.

It seems to have paid off as well, on the news I heard several retail managers drooling over the fact that they were finding it difficult to pack in any more people into their stores on boxing day.

Anyway with this alternative seasonal message I wish all my readers best wishes of the winter festival and happy new year.

Friday's Work day prayer

While trudging to work at the end of a long week I was thinking of a prayer to get me through the day. Don't worry I am not about to get all religious on you I was remembering some joke prayer about asking for the strength to get through the day despite all the idiots or something like that.

A bit of google work later... there are a few versions of a joke email that gets forwarded everywhere which is in turn a corrupted version of a famous prayer called 'The Serenity Prayer'.

The Joke Version:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I cannot accept,
And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people
I had to kill today because they pissed me off.

You can see how apt this is when you are facing another day at the organisation where the phrase 'bureaucracy gone mad' was invented.

The Original Version:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

The second version is a nice little prayer even if you don't believe in God.

This all got me to thinking that really in the poem the word god could be replaced by something like " God, any other religious deity, any being or anything that has the power to help me".

In my simple thoughts of religious matters I ponder whether belief in a god is necessary for a prayer to take place. After all a prayer could be described as asking for something where the outcome is not certain. After all if a close relative is dying we still will them to survive even if we do not start our thoughts with "Dear God".

Which made me think of a thought experiment about whether atheists pray. If a person had for whatever reason jumped out of a plane without a parachute and was plummeting to the ground with about four minutes to live what would they be thinking. Well you would be thinking I hope something happens to save me which in a sense is a prayer. Proof positive.

Of course testing this would require speaking to people who are falling to their impending death. Given that most people don't willingly jump out of a plane without a parachute this could be a bit difficult.

All those thoughts because of another tedious Friday.

Note: If this article has caused any offence to anyone, this was not my intention. It was merely a random thought from my brain.

Recursive dreaming

I read in New Scientist magazine about the linked blogger who wondered how many levels in a recursive dream you could have.

Basically a recursive dream is a dream within a dream.

My dreams are fairly good and I can exercise some limited control over them or at least I have had some dreams so many times that I can rewrite them.

My recursive dream tends to be about getting up and doing all your morning preparations and then leaving the house. In some ways its quite a natural dream in the sense that your brain is waking up and preparing itself to get ready, so it is creating a mental to-do list and running through it which is expressed as a dream. The other thing is that morning routines are fairly regular and repetitive so most of it could be done subconsciously in your sleep not really having to wake up until you eventually arrive at work.

Anyway the dream is quite simple, I get up, get shower, shave, clean teeth, get dressed, go downstairs, get breakfast, collect final bits and leave house for work.

So I am busy dreaming this very real dream which feels just like a normal day, I leave the house and then I wake up. This is where the recursive bit comes in, because although I wake up I start the dream over again, so I wake up, get up etc until the point I leave the house again except then I wake up.

Its difficult to say how many times I have managed to repeat this dream but I think at least three times in one morning. Of course by the time you are actually awake all you can think is that you have done all this three times already.

Another repeating but not recursive dream I keep having is an old favourite about failing an exam. It varies from turning up late or not preparing, I know it means that I am just worrying about some detail that I haven't finalised yet.

It has become such a common dream that now I often start telling myself not to worry as I passed these exams years ago. As these dreams are in the past it is a past me with future knowledge. I have to say that the past me never recognises this time paradox.

Dreams are such strange things and I always find mine fascinating.

The Roy G. Biv theory

This is one of those half baked ideas that I have.

I cant decide whether this idea is:

a multi million pound paper back book Christmas special finally giving ordinary people the key to live a happy, successful life...

Or...

a parody of the million pound paper book back... blah blah blah etc etc etc...

Or...

a collection of odds and sods reorganised into something that is completely worthless...

Or...

just an interesting coffee break thought.

For those of you that don't know 'ROY G BIV' represents the colour and order of a rainbow (although according to wikipedia there may be some argument about this).

R - Red
O - Orange
Y - Yellow

G - Green

B - Blue
I - Indigo
V - Violet

Now inspiration particles (Terry Pratchett reference) hit in completely random places, this one hit me on a bus on the way to work in bright sunshine on a late October day. It was inspired by the following musical lyric.

"...And it was all yellow... "

-Yellow, Coldplay

So anyway on to the theory.

The Roy G. Biv Theory

Take any day and assign it a colour from 'ROY G BIV' according to the following colours and meanings.

Red -

Red is for passion, not just love but any day when you are passionate about something. It can be a thirst for making a change in your life or passionately arguing to change somebodies mind. It does not representative destructive anger or negative argumentative passion.

A red day is a positive day.

Orange -

Orange is about ideas and creativity. Orange screams listen or look at me. Orange are for those days where your energy and creativity are strongest. You mind solves intricate problems with ease.

An orange is a positive day.

Yellow -

Yellow is sunshine, happiness and contentment. Yellow is about being at ease with yourself and enjoying your day. Maybe nothing special happens but a yellow day is a pleasant emotionally stable day.

A yellow day is a positive day.

Green -

Green is the colour of change. Green is about changing not necessarily for the better. Green days are tough days that take a lot of energy and concentration potentially for little reward.

A green day is a neutral day.

Blue -

Blue is the colour of sadness. It can be a very emotional time, negative often associated with depression or tears. Blue days are emotionally draining days where you would rather be wrapped up under the duvet shutting yourself off from the world.

A blue day is a negative day.

Indigo -

Indigo is the colour of spiritualism. It is about deep thought sometimes with a detachment from reality. Indigo days are characterized by a feeling of not being a part of the every day world. A day of being lost in your own world.

An indigo day is a neutral day.

Violet -

Violet is the colour of anger. It is about anger barely contained, an explosion waiting to happen. Violet days are characterized by a general grumpy feeling, a tense day where you could lash out at anyone and everyone.

A violet day is a negative day.

Now do this for a week taking the predominant colour of each day and you will have a list like so

Colour
RRGBOYII

+/-
++ . - + + .. giving a total score for the week of +3.

Obviously the more positive your week the better, and for negative weeks you can look closely at your problem areas.

As the weeks go by you will start to see patterns to the days and emotions which will enrich your understanding of yourself.

This framework is about starting a voyage of discovery about you and your emotions and how that ebbs and flows over a week.

...End of theory...

Now,do you see the problem I had at the start of this article. On a very superficial level my theory seems as good as any other mumbo jumbo that makes it into the paperback Christmas chart but when you look a bit close isn't all just a load of made up nonsense.

All the colours are an adaption or reorganisation of existing colour theory or just what the colour sometimes means to me.

Either way I am going to park it here on my blog, make of it what you will.

Just in case, if it does turn out that the idea is worth millions, please note the copyright and intellectual property contained here in belongs to me, and I will sue.

Humanistic Design

Humanistic Design is about how we as people relate to things like technology. Our interaction with technology is a whole science about human interfaces and usability.

Humans intuitively know how things should work. We pick up a camera and we know when we press the button not only should the button go click but we should hear the shutter open and closing.

The thing is technology is now so advanced that the camera doesn't need to go click and make a shutter noise. So why does it? Well quite simply if it did not we as humans would feel uncomfortable without quite knowing why. Therefore the camera would become an alien object to us and sub consciously we might buy the camera that does have the noises even if there is an option to turn them on and off.

The other strange thing about human design is what we expect technology to look and sound like. Take a gadget like an MP3 player, generally silver, small with sexy curves is a good thing. The MP3 player I bought a while ago followed this design ethos, it was small sleek with simple buttons.

However, I discovered a humanistic design flaw. The design is essential a tube with the headphone jack at one end and the usb port at the other. The problem came when deciding what the headphone jack would look like, they went for a straight jack rather than an L-shape. After about two months all the twisting has broken the cable and I have had to go and buy some new headphones. I bought an L-shaped jack and although it breaks up the sleek lines it probably wont break so easily.

Take cars as well, we all know that a really great car will have a throaty engine roar. So engine designers make sports cars with throaty roars, whether they need a good roar to have a good engine is a mute point. Humans demand a good throaty roar so they must have it.

Humans are fascinating creatures, we have so many rules, traditions and customs which our mind creates to make life easier. Our interaction with things is just one study of psychology that I have always found fascinating.

Here are two example clips of humanistic design which are pointless but satisfying, prepare to release your inner geek.

Camera shutter

Phone shut

Coconut Skins and the Coconut Factory

I was busy licking coconut skins (interviewing candidates) yesterday. It was a long day but there was some very good candidates who will be an asset to the organisation. Thankfully even the bad ones were not nutters, they were just not good enough this time.

The only tips that came out of yesterday was keep your hands still. At least two people were significantly fidgety that it was distracting me. I know as a candidate you may be nervous but it is best to avoid holding anything in your hands and not to play with your clothes.

I made the best fool out of myself yesterday, I temporarily lost my pen and the candidate needed one to sign some paperwork. The candidate pointed out it was already in my hand. Doh!

The chairs were a bit rubbish as well, one day in those was liking flying on a budget airline.

I was interviewing in one of the executive office blocks the organisation owns. The walls were covered in inspirational quote pictures, plenty of office space, newly decorated, the works. Just the kind of building occupied by people who go no where near the sharp end of the business and just issue edicts from their ivory tower.

Any workplace that has inspirational posters on the wall is either trying too hard or is detached from reality. Posters may even go as far as to suggest that management have used them as a sticking plaster to appease a disgruntled work force. Management seem to have this idea that inspirational posters really help.

Of course as it was all in an executive suite with guards and hyper efficient receptionists, security was very tight even the kitchen had a numeric key lock. I will be glad on Monday to return to the coal face, my trip into executive land seems like a scary psychedelic dream.