Bosworth on Physics, Psychology, and Software

Adam Bosworth almost always makes me think, so I jump at a chance to listen to him or read what he writes. He recently gave a talk in NYC as part of the Google Speaker Series and Darryl Taft wrote up a report at eWeek.

Bosworth talked about how physics and psychology affect which applications fail and which succeed. His examples: AJAX, PDAs, and natural language recognition. His recommendations:

• Keep it simple and stupid—even if that requires more clicks
• Use AJAX where it makes a difference—not just the geewhiz factor
• Make your tools transparent and fast
• Support bottom-up learning

Google’s success, of course, can be attributed to these (and other) ideas.

Posted by windley on January 31, 2007 11:01 AM