Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbow room is pleasanter – and much safer.

—Lazarus Long


Archive for May, 2003

A Taxonomy of Cognitive Stress

Tuesday, May 13th, 2003

I have been thinking about UI design lately. With some help from my
friend Rob Landley, I’ve come up with a classification schema for the
levels at which users are willing to invest effort to build
competence.
The base assumption is that for any given user there is a maximum
cognitive load any given user is willing to accept [...]

The Delusion of Expertise

Monday, May 5th, 2003

I learned something this weekend about the high cost of the subtle
delusion that creative technical problem-solving is the preserve of
a priesthood of experts, using powers and perceptions beyond the ken of
ordinary human beings.
Terry Pratchett is the author of the Discworld series
of satirical fantasies. He is — and I don’t say this lightly, or
without having given [...]