Further to the ten rules, there are many analogies for consumer operated HVAC systems and controls which can be drawn from Dr. Sviokla words below:
“There
is a wonderful tension between the
universality of use and the
usefulness of a tool. Contrary to
popular belief, the most powerful
tools we create as humans take
effort to learn to. Mathematics,
language, biology, all take years to
become fluent in. Put another way,
any literate person can use Google
in their own language — it takes
seconds to learn. But the process of
becoming literate takes years to
master. Google "rides on top of" our
ability to read and write.
One of the great tragedies of the
current computer revolution is the
widespread expectation that every
piece of software should be easy to
use. Well, easy-to-use tools such as
Google are useful to everyone, but
because Google assumes that people
will not make the effort to learn
anything, they have to provide
simple — even simplistic —
interfaces. If the mass public
expected that they might have to do
a little learning and work, Google,
Microsoft, and others could provide
even more powerful tools for helping
knowledge workers — but our
education system and culture expect
nothing of us as users.”
Source/credit : Wolfram Alpha vs.
Google = Power vs. Simplicity?,John
Sviokla, Harvard Business
Publishing, Friday May 8, 2009
