Contact:cdent@burningchrome.com
Norman, D. (1993). Chapter 7: A place for everything and everything in
its place. In _Things that makes us smart_ (p. 155-184).
Cambridge: Perseus Books.
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There's a great deal to respond to here but I'll pick just one issue.
People benefit from the lumping and ordering of information. It helps
to create relationships and maintain distinctions. Norman realizes
that with the help of a computer the lumping and ordering of
information can be dynamicaly adjusted to the needs of the immediate
user and application. This is a good insight. N. could have come right
out and said, "computers would be great at facilitating faceted
classification."
There's a bit of a flaw in his reasoning:
One of the powers of the computer should be that it doesn't
have to keep things in order.
I think what he really means is that we don't need to know the
internal representation the computer is using to order things. If the
computer does not order the information it can't be retrieved.
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