This work focuses on how to best go about understanding and augmenting a system. Engelbart discusses and defines augmentation of intellect, increased capabilities, and complex situations and how they each relate to one another. The author stresses the importance of small steps to reach a goal and how we must first assess what we have before researching how to improve upon it. I find this to be an important reminder, as many of the issues both big and small that designers address involve processes that may seem overwhelming before they are properly broken down and an approach is determined.
Katherine Hayle’s lecture featured in this video gave me a lot more questions than answers on the topic of “cognitive nonconscious” and what that means. She discussed complex systems and how cognition appears within adaptive, emergent systems made up of cognitive agents. This aspect was helpful my understanding of what makes a system considered to be complex. However, a lot of the remainder of this speech was lost on me. I found her comparison of related studies interesting but I had trouble with certain terms and relating them back to my own practice. I feel that if I were more in tune with other human sciences that I might have been able to appreciate more of what she shared during this speech.
What Can a Body Do? explores the important questions regarding assistive technology and what is currently regarded as “normal” in our society. Hendren seeks to make clear that perspective in design is important, especially regarding our needs as users and humans. Framing certain needs as “normal” creates a lot more people that then identify as “abnormal” when they consider how they interact with the built world. The body-centric view towards augmentation is made clear in their definition of tools in all their forms as extensions of our bodies. I really resonated specifically, as a design student interested in the accessibility of technology, with this piece’s highlight of the importance of both practicality and form / aesthetic because that truly does change the way interactions with any object or environment are perceived, both individually and as a culture.
This narrative story was one of the more gripping ones to me. I really enjoyed the style in which it was written, focusing each chapter on different portions of what was changing around the main character, Sunny’s, life. This story was different from all the others assigned because it had more of a personal, character-driven approach to dealing with the topic of augmentation. It helped me to shift my perspective more towards how we as humans are augmented by our experiences, as well as how our experiences change after we might choose to augment parts of our personalities.
The examples within this story were hyperbolic and extreme, but I deeply appreciated the themes that they were focused on exploring. “Equality” is what is augmented in this story, or at least how those in power define equality. Characters are driven down to meet the levels of those who are defined to be below their natural skill levels and punishments are set in place to keep people in line. I think this creates a great example of how augmentation can be a negative given certain contexts and how we as designers need to be mindful of how we choose to “improve” particular systems. Our power over change puts us in a position where we must be knowledgeable of our impact on our audience. This seems obvious but is essential to keep in the forefront of our thoughts.
This fictional article explores the augmentation of human abilities by describing a world in which a new race of “metahumans” has surpassed the comprehensive speed of any humans and has even become unable to communicate with humans after developing their own language. The fictional perspective of the author also seeks to augment the perception of its human readers regarding metahumans and the research being done surrounding metahumans’ advanced technological accomplishments. I really appreciated this story and related it to how individuals researching internet trends, that of which is controlled by manmade algorithms using user input from all over the world, cannot seem to keep up with their speed and capabilities.