New feeds / Design of future things

Added some new feeds.

The e-Government Resource Centre in Victoria, Australia produces a good International round-up, if PR heavy
The Register, nma and Revolution are UK New Media press. Journalism.co.uk is another (self-explanatory) prime source. Dan Gilmor is a Silicon Valley vet. Shorewalker is the blog of David Walker, who writes for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. ClickZ is a Net Marketing goldmine. Wired is the Californian, utopionist mag inspired by Marshall McLuhan.

And Don Norman is Jacon Nielsen's mate.

The Design of Future Things

Norman, D. A. (2007). The Design of Future Things. New York: Basic Books. (Expected publication date is November, 2007.)
Drawing by Alison Wong [above right]. This is a placeholder for the real cover which is being designed by the publisher.

Draft Table of Contents:

(Please do not tell me about typographical errors -- these are drafts and will be rewritten and copyedited. Suggestions about content and corrections of factual errors are welcomed. Mail to jnd at jnd.org)

1. Cautious Cars and Cantankerous Kitchens: How Machines Take Control (A PDF document)
2. Servants of our Machines
3. The Psychology of People & Machines
4. The Role of Automation
5. Natural Interaction
6. Six Rules for the Design of Smart Things
7. The Future of Everyday Things
8. Afterward: The Machine's Point of View. Afterward Excerpt: How to talk to people (A pdf document)

From except: We machines come from a very different world than people. It isn't easy to
communicate with them: People take suggestions as criticism and get
defensive, and sometimes angry. They misinterpret our utterances, they ignore
us, or they overreact. Sometimes we just can't win.

Five Rules of Communication from Machines to People

1. Keep things simple.
2. Always give people a conceptual model.
3. Give reasons.
4. Continually reassure.
5. Make them think they are in control

People have difficulty with anything complicated and they don't like to listen.
So make the message short. It's better not to use language. It takes too long
and, anyway, human language is horribly ambiguous. Use "natural"
communication systems. Basically, don't make people work to understand
things – make it immediately obvious – hence, "natural.".