The New Scientist interviews Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, about software and product design: “You don’t do good software design by committee. You do it best by having a dictator. … The person who’s done it best is Steve Jobs, and he’s well-known for being a tyrant.”
Norman also touts the interesting idea that machines should be more “emotional” — by which he means, they need survival skills. Your laptop should get “nervous” if it’s running low on power, autonomous robots should be afraid of heights (to keep them from rolling down stairs), etc. Marvin the Paranoid Android, here we come…
