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Robert McNinch

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Publications by Robert McNinch (bibliography)

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1988
 
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Root, Robert W., Grantham, Charles, Landauer, Thomas K., Mackay, Wendy E. and McNinch, Robert (1988): Telecommunications in the 1990s: Human Factors Issues for the Information Age. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 32nd Annual Meeting 1988. pp. 252-253.

Advances in technology are revolutionizing the communications industry. Optical fiber, computer-controlled switches, software-defined services, digital communications, and integrated services networks will soon deliver high-speed broadband communications and information services to individual homes and businesses. The next decade will bring impressive changes in the power, complexity and range of services offered through what we think of as the "telephone system". The technology is inexorably advancing, with or without the blessing and guidance of the human factors community. The main purpose of this panel is to call attention to the human factors implications of the "network of the future". A major aspect of this future network will be a blurring of the distinction between computation and communications due to the integration of voice and data networks (as in ISDN). This integration will have several important consequences. First, the notion of "communications" activities will be broadened to include not only synchronous human-human interaction but also asynchronous (e.g., electronic mail), multiparty, and human-machine interaction (as in information retrieval). Second, personal computers will increasingly be used and viewed as communications devices as well as computational machines. Third, "intelligent" networks will play an increasingly important role as mediators of human-human and human-machine interaction rather than acting simply as passive transport systems. These developments may be important for the practice of human factors. At the very least, they imply a merging of the concerns of telecommunications with human-computer interaction research. For example, designing interfaces for ISDN applications may require understanding how the interaction between users and communications services is affected by the representation of the application in the interface. In addition, they may call into question the role of human factors practitioners and researchers and the goals they should serve. Should we be content to design and evaluate interfaces to advanced services networks, or should we be using our knowledge of human needs and capabilities to drive the development of new applications to support.

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Changes to this page (author)

10 Feb 2010: Modified
25 Jun 2007: Added

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May 20

The moment clients realize that revisions are not an all-you-can-eat buffet, suddenly they realize they are not hungry.

-- Lester Beall

 
 

Featured chapter

Read the fascinating history of Wearable Computing, told by its father, Steve Mann

Read Steve's chapter !

 
 

Help us help you!