New posts soon!

It has been a while since I have posted, and I’m sorry about that! New posts will be coming about textless Ikea assembly instructions and my new GPS system. I think I’m just suffering from Post-Quals slump! I took my Qualifying Exams in August, and I found out a couple weeks ago that I passed. It’s great news, but it does lead to, well, a lack of motivation. And that’s putting it lightly. For now, enjoy this PhD comic/brochure that really should exist (click on the comic to go to the PhD site):

And one more for the researchers/stats folk out there (click on the comic to go to the PhD site):

Human Factors should not be the only factor

I saw some drafts of new logos for the Arch Lab last week (the Arch Lab is the group of people associated with the Human Factors program at Mason). They all look great, and someone mentioned the human factors of logo design, which got me thinking. Currently, we don’t really have a logo or identity. We have one black-and-white… thing that we don’t have on the web site, thank goodness, and the website header itself is pretty darn boring (click to see the whole site):

The new logo will look up to date, modern, and “academic cool.” I think the designs we have look great, but someone mentioned that the logo also seemed fairly ergonomic - the adjective that means “easily understood/used by people.” I countered that if usability and human factors were the only thing that our logo should be based off of, then our logo should be:

It’s black-on-white, so everyone can read it clearly and easily. It’s even in Helvetica, which is an incredibly popular font for its readability. No flashiness, no graphics, no anything - just readable text. It’s good human factors, but it’s awfully boring.

What’s the lesson? Human factors is important - what good is designing a product if no one can use it (see Cubist Site) But if human factors was the only factor, we’d live in a very boring world full of black-and-white logos, text-based websites, and boxes for cars that only had the bare necessities. It’s good to know that companies have both a design and human factors group. Each group may get frustrated that the other just “doesn’t understand,” but, in the end, you end up with a product that is both pretty to look at and pretty useable.

First post!

The first post of my new site. Perhaps a brief introduction is in order: I’m a doctoral student at George Mason University, studying Human Factors and Applied Cognition. What does that mean? Well, the study of cognition is learning about how the brain works - how we see, what we pay attention to, how we remember things, how we make decisions, and much more.

Human factors takes this knowledge and applies it to technology. By understanding the limits of the human, technology can be made easier to use and make us more productive. Why is TiVo more successful than recording on tape with a VCR? The convenience of having your shows in the same place, but just look at the interface! You point and click, and it’s done - it’s fast, easy, and intuitive. Human factors and applied cognition is about learning why and how of human thought in order to design such compelling technology.

Specifically, this site is three things:

1. Details about my professional life - my publications, projects, CV, etc.
2. Interesting tidbits about cognition research from myself and others.
3. Musings on the interaction between cognition and design - both the good and the bad!