Less is More as Microsoft ponders Life beyond the PC

Designers, psychologists and computer scientists gathered at the Microsoft Research Cambridge "Less is More — Simple Computing in an Age of Complexity" forum in late April to present research looked at the rapid shift beyond the desktop PC, and in particular how to improve the people’s quality of life irrespective of their age, location or economic situation.

Keynote speaker Bill Buxton, who is visiting at Microsoft in Britain at the moment, opened the forum. The two-day forum also featured a keynote address from Scott Jenson, one of the original designers of the Apple Newton, as well as presentations by a number of researchers from throughout Europe on a variety of topics. Below are three that explore different aspects of user experience.

"When I'm eighty four: beyond safety and independence" by Andrew Monk and Mark Blythe outlined the need to move from the medically-oriented practice of keeping elderly people out of institutional care towards a user-centred focus on quality of life. While isolation has been identified as one of the major problems facing older people by Age Concern (in research from 2002), new digital communication technologies have considerable potential to reduce the problem.

"How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in the microwave until its Bill Withers: Some social features of a simple technology", by Connor Graham, Keith Cheverst, Dan Fitton and Mark Rouncefield, took a look at how certain features of texting draw upon and reflect social aspects of people’s everyday life that are essential to collaboration and coordination.

While, "I Just Clicked To Say I Love You", by Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye, presented results of a study of minimal intimate objects, or MinIOs, defined as low-bandwidth devices for communicating intimacy between couples in long-distance relationships. The findings note that the minimalist nature of the device allowed for rich and complex interpretation of an otherwise simple communication. The author suggests that piggybacking on the culturally imprinted nature of communications may serve as a model for understanding other complex uses of otherwise simple computing.

(The forum didn't insist that submitted presentations adapted a well-known song title or artist but there does seem to have been a rock-and-roll theme to the ones featured here...)

All change at the top for System Concepts
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Interfaces Magazine - Issue 79: The Education Issue
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Cell Phones that Listen and Learn
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Six tips for creating quality usability tests to ensure useful feedback from testers.

Usability: ‘Lovely software. But I can’t work it’
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It's all about 'meaningful use'.

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