Cognitive Artifacts & Windows 95 :: essays research papers

Cognitive Artifacts & Windows 95     The article on Cognitive Artifacts by David A. Norman negociates with thetheories and principles of artifacts as they relate to the user during executionand completion of tasks. These principles and theories that Norman speaks aboutmay be applied to any graphical user interface, stock-still I have chosen to relatethe article to the interface known as Windows 95. Within Windows 95, Microsofthas included a little tool called the wizard that guides us through the stepsinvolved in setting up certain applications. This wizard is a very helpful toolto the non experienced computer user, in the way that it acts like a to-do tip.The wizard takes a complex task and breaks it into discrete pieces by askingquestions and responding to those questions based on the answers. UsingNormans theories on system view and the personal view of artifacts, we see thatthe system views the wizard as an enhancement. For example, we wanted to set upt he Internet explorer, you click on the prototype answer the wizards questions andthe computer performs the work. Making sure everything is setup properlywithout the errors that could occur in configuring the task yourself. Thewizard performs all the functions on its little to-do list without having theuser worrying about whether he/she remembered to include all the commands. Onthe side of personal views the user may see the wizard as a new task to learnbut in general it is simpler than having to configure the application yourselfand making an error, that could cause disaster to your system. The wizard alsoprevents the user from having to deal with all the familiar representation ofthe application like typing in command lines in the system editor.     Within Windows 95 most of the representation is internal therefore weneed a way to transform it to surface representation so it is accessible to theuser. According to Normans article there atomic number 18 "th ree indwelling ingredients inrepresentational systems. These being the world which is to be represented, theset of symbols representing the world, and an interpreter." This is done inWindows by icons on the desktop and on the start menu. The world we atomic number 18 tryingto represent to the user is the application, which can be represented by asymbol which is the icon. These icons on the desktop and on the start menu arethe surface representations the user sees when he goes to access the applicationnot all the files used to create it or used in conjunction with the applications