Keynote: Hatton

Thursday 5th September HCI Keynote Address
9.30 - 10.30

This talk will consider the concepts of memorability and invisibility, in a variety of contexts that have been presented to me during my career. The alarm clocks in question are both purpose-built, electronic, embedded systems. One is a delight, the other is a nightmare. These extremes have been repeated many times in my career. These and other examples will be used to tease out some basic principles. It is my belief that the historic architectural concepts of simplicity, elegance and delight can be introduced to computing science where they manifest themselves as memorability and invisibility just as the historical engineering concept of designing to mitigate failure can be introduced where it manifests itself in trust and acceptance. The real enemy in both cases is unnecessary complexity.