Looking For Leonardo's Laptop

from the if-you-find-it,-send-it-here... dept

The joke used to be that technologists were more fascinated with technology that what could be done with it, that when they went to the movies, they must have spent all their time staring at the projector than the movie being played. It seems that concept has been taken and put into book form in a new book called Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies. Basically, the writer's complaint is that computers provide users with too much frustration, and don't accomplish half of what they could if designers put their thoughts more towards how people actually use computers. I'm not so sure the basic premise really is true. I think plenty of computer and software makers think about how people use technology - but I still agree with the conclusion of the book. There are plenty of things that could be done to make computers and technology much more usable and user friendly these days. Hopefully, instead of just pushing for more powerful machines, people will realize that it might be time to focus on better machines.

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