This Week in EID – Episode 33

We have some very practical but future thinking ideas on Ergonomics in Design this week.  If you think those are contradictory, please take a look at the articles.

For example, on Monday we talked about the electronic-only residency program that has been launched by Estonia.  This is a reality, although at the cutting edge of e-Gov inititiatives.  Whether it is really practical or not I guess depends in part on how many people sign up and if they get some benefits from it.  But I have no doubt that what we learn from the exercise will lead e-Gov development going forward.

Tuesday’s example may be the future, but probably not exactly as suggested in the article (so it is still forward thinking).  In a few different LinkedIn groups, ergonomics, design, and optimization experts have weighed in on some challenges with the design. But the approach seems to match what airlines are trying to do, so I suspect something along these lines will be our reality.

I really liked the Wednesday post.  In part because it goes against conventional wisdom and I love when that happens.  But also because it suggests that aging might not be as bad for cognition as we previous thought and since I am getting old soon enough it gives me personal hope. 

And Thursday, I cited a report that found that the data many people are basing their social media research on is flawed well beyond what we appreciated.  There are many sources of bias that, when added together, might make all of our generalized findings suspect.  Back to the drawing board.  And since my personal expertise is in designing research methods with internal and external validity, I am happy to work with these social media companies to restructure their approaches.