Toyota Distinguished Keynote Lecture

Donald A. Norman
Nielsen Norman Group
Prof. EE & Computer Science, Cognitive Science & Psychology, Northwestern University
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

www.jnd.org

The Design of Future Things: Cautious Cars

I will discuss the increasing intrusion of intelligent devices into the automobile with both expected benefits and unexpected dangers.

The aviation industry knows a lot about the dangers of overautomation. The Human factors and Control industry has long studied problems of operator control of automated equipment, including supervisory control. The issues here, however, are different: most studies of automation and intelligent devices look at industrial settings, with well-trained operators who do the same operations over and over again. In the automobile, we have ill-trained operators, with little understanding (and little interest in gaining understanding), who may have to react in seconds.

Full automation, along with full autonomy probably is inevitable, and it will provide significant safety benefits. But partial autonomy, partial automation can be confusing, frustrating and dangerous. For these in-between states, I prose that we do not allow partial solutions, but rather use the technology to augment our abilities in a symbiotic fashion. I propose an approach I call “natural interaction,” where people and machines interact and communicate in ways that are natural, use environmental cues, and provide continual awareness of the other’s activities without annoyance. This requires development of a science of natural interaction, using appropriate visual, haptic, and auditory fields that map gracefully between machine and environmental states and human perception.

Biographical Sketch

Don Norman is cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, Professor at Northwestern University, and former VP of Apple Computer. He studies automobile safety at Northwestern’s newly formed Design Institute, which he co-directs. He was the founding chair of the department of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, a founder of the Cognitive Science society, where he served as Chair and editor of its journal. He serves on many advisory boards, including Chicago’s Institute of Design and Encyclopedia Britannica. He has received the Franklin V. Taylor Award for outstanding contribution to the field of Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology and the Benjamin Franklin medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. He has honorary degrees from the University of Padova (Italy) and the Technical University Delft (the Netherlands) and is the author of “The Design of Everyday Things” and“Emotional Design.” His newest book, “The Design of Future Things,” to be published in October, discusses the role that automation will play in such everyday places as the home, and automobile.