Monday, 1 September 2008

Thoughts on tools to accomplish tasks...

We use tools to accomplish tasks, and we abandon tools when the effort required to make the tool deliver exceeds our threshold of indignation. ... (... the threshold of indignation (is) the maximal behavioral compromise that we are willing to make to get a task done.)
-- Paul Saffo, in Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, 1996

Why blog this?
The information ecology discusses how to move away from the tool centric approach, the interpretation and thoughts that the information ecology puts on the above statement is how
a tool is abandoned when it "exceeds our threshold of indignation" I would cite this as being down to the context/environment that the tool is being used in. So that the tool has not been fully thought of in the context of its information ecology - can question if this can begin to explain the behavioral compromise that people are willing to make to get a task done.

A key here for me is recognizing what the information ecology is and what it can mean for a new tool with what it is part of, in order to be able to start to explain and question the "behavioral compromise".