Cognitive Design

One theme I hit hard in my courses and workshops is that cognitive design is about optimizing the behavior of artifacts for how mindS work. I emphasize the “S” in minds because there are in fact five types of minds – individual, extended, group, emergent and machine-  that we can design for.  Missing this point is a common error that leads to poor cognitive design. We typically design for the “mind of the user” ending up overloading them or considering far too few options for how to meet their cognitive needs.  We most of course focus on the “minds of the user” but we can best do so by understanding how the other types of minds fit into the picture.

So I am always on the look out for new design options and tools that make us aware that we can offload or reconfigure some of the individual’s cognition onto other artifacts.  An interesting example is Geminoid F, a life-like remotely controlled robot developed at the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory in Japan.

For additional photos and videos check out  this post on the Pink Tentacle.  Although not artificially intelligent, Geminoid F could open up many robotic applications in the service industries. She certainly raises interesting cognitive design issues. Don’t think you can buy one yet but the projected cost is 10 million Yen or about $108,000.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Service Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.