Task 5 - David Kelley

I found David Kelley's talks to be quite interesting. His discussion on the way things are designed and how humans perceive and respond something I find to be a rather important point. A point which he made very clear to me when he asked which one is the salt shaker and which ones for pepper? The answer not mattering at all as he said "it doesn't matter what we think they are for, but it matters for the person who puts fills the shakers". From his lecture he reiterated what I have always believed, that good design is universal and a user should be able to relate to it naturally and not have the design impose itself on it.

His longest talk of the three delved into man vs machine and spoke about how difficult it is to gear both the human mind and instincts with the limited computerized intelligence of computers. I was suprised that he didn't delve into whether or not machines doing everything for us or knowing everything about us would be a bad thing. But he did show how good design ought to work in such a future where machines did a lot of the simple jobs we do now, that is to let technology tell us what it perceives the world around it to be, but to let us make the decsions.

David George