On Doing

This quarter I took a very interesting class called Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction, dictated by Scott Klemmer here at Stanford. It basically showed us how to build and, above all, how to test an interaction. It is supposed to be about the relation between a human and a machine…but sometimes I thought we were talking about human-human interaction.

image link: http://www.russianspy.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/putin_indonesia.jpg

One of the most important factor about an interaction is the feedback. The human wants to perform a task, and it needs the computer to do so. It inputs a certain information, and then waits…the human needs to know whether his task is done or not. Otherwise, we have problems. Imagine to turn on the kitchen stove and not knowing if its on or off.

The human-human relation that I remember the most with this example is the client-designer or, to use a more closer example, student-professor. In both cases, there is somebody who needs a task to be done. And a human (student) desesperately trying to fulfill that task, waiting for any feedback that helps him to find out “what is it that they want from me”. I can’t figure out who’s the computer in this example…I guess the client, who wants to perform a task, is the human. Is then the  designer a computer???