Ë Ë William Buxton

William Buxton

Belief Systems:
Mr. Buxton believes technology plays an important role in shaping people's belief systems. This was illustrated by an exercise where he asked people to draw a computer and the majority of the submitted pictures were of CRT's and keyboards. Most pictures did not even include the box that enclosed the processor chip. This showed that our belief systems are influenced by the forms taken by the input and output devices of our different tools.
Norman discusses this in the following way:
Another interesting example was where Buxton asked, "Why was the watch invented?...". Surprising to most people was that the watch was not designed to tell time but to improve navigation - Œthe watch answers the question "where" rather than "when". This was an interesting look at how people's perceptions and belief systems are transformed over time.
Consciousness:
Development:
Development was described in two ways.
- One was as a "big bang". This form of development implies a„ major departure from the current state to a completely new one. „ This way was not considered very useful since mistakes made in this approach were usually quite costly to fix. Also this approach did not take advantage of the learning process done in a more iterative process.
- The other form of development discussed was an interactive one where past experience from past iterations could be built upon. The mistakes resulting from this form of development are supposedly a smaller magnitude in comparison to the "big bang" approach.
In a universal sense, Buxton discussed the necessity of experiencing the desired state of development, as closely as possible, in order to facilitate the achievement of that level of development.
Emotion:
Interaction:
From the example of the watch and the computer drawing exercise, Buxton was showing us how he felt social interaction influences people's cognitive processes. In short, he was suggesting that our daily interactions with other people and technology has a strong influence on cognitive processes but also that these influences could be counteracted by study of history and analytical thought.
Learning:
Mr. Buxton talks about learningŒbeing done in an interactive manner. His views on learning are mainly based on actual experience, i.e., "learn by doing".
Memory:
Language and Perception:
Mr. Buxton alluded to the importance of language and perception in the way we think by talking about watching the terminology we use in describing the current technological process being undergone by information based systems. He cautioned against using the term "convergence" since it was intrinsically related to technology and that the term "divergence" was a more apt term because of its intrinsic description of human realities. This emphasis on the use of correct terminology highlights the importance of language to our perception and how a change in it can affect our overall cognitive process.
Performance:
Mr. Buxton touches on the issues brought up by Norman on performance. He states that because of the poor quality of the current human interfaces, our overall performance is stifled. He says that tools should mirror the user in three ways:
1. in a social sense;
2. in a cognitive sense;
3. in a physical sense.
Since the current interfaces don't meet these criteria, our performance or output potential is not being met and is in fact being stifled to a mediocre level. This viewŒrelates to Norman's observation that the way in which we interact with the world directly impacts on how we view the world and thus how well we perform:
Skill:
Mr. Buxton didn't touch very much on this subject other than to imply that the human potential for skill in various areas, is greater than the current human interfaces will allow.
Thought:
Mr. Buxton touched on the issue of thought by talking about creativity. His comments, also associated with performance as discussed above, suggest information systems technology can facilitate higher levels of creativity (particularly for musical artists and other performing artists). This is given that the human interfaces in these systems begin meeting Buxton's criteria for fidelity and quality (the user interface should mirror the user in a social, cognitive and physical sense). If the interfaces don't meet these criteria, then the result is a stifling of creative thought.

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