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Human-factors engineers -- whose training includes psychology -- specialize in testing products for usability, for example checking whether a copying machine's legs get in the way, or measuring how much force it takes to open a coffee canister. The engineers can then suggest design changes, which benefit all users but especially those with disabilities or conditions such as arthritis.

Robot and virtual pets are beginning to replace children's interactions with biologically live pets," said Ruckert. "The larger concern is that technological nature will shift the baseline of what people perceive as the full human experience of nature, and that it will contribute to what we call environmental generational amnesia.

Current practice in Human Computer Interaction as encouraged by educational institutes, academic review processes, and institutions with usability groups advocate usability evaluation as a critical part of every design process. This is for good reason: usability evaluation has a significant role to play when conditions warrant it. Yet evaluation can be ineffective and even harmful if naively done 'by rule' rather than 'by thought'. If done during early stage design, it can mute creative ideas that do not conform to current interface norms. If done to test radical innovations, the many interface issues that would likely arise from an immature technology can quash what could have been an inspired vision

The ways people react to robots is teaching computer and robotics scientists valuable lessons about how to make technology more user-friendly -- and more human.

The book never emerged from the bag. I was too busy with my internet-connected mobile phone: sending messages to friends; reading articles after clicking on links they'd sent; even looking at a couple of pages of a Sherlock Holmes story which I have stored in an application on the phone. Which brings us to the oft-asked question - is the internet killing the book?

Dr Peter Sozou suggests that individuals may have an innate tendency to care about the long-term future of their communities, over timescales much longer than an individual's lifespan. This in turn may help to explain people's wish to take action over long-term environmental problems.

Hunkering gives the designer a chance to get lost in the reality of their design. Like visiting a vacation spot you've only seen pictures of, the initial impression takes a little getting used to. Then, once you've had a chance to orient yourself, to find the familiar elements you were expecting and place them relative to each other, the vacation spot becomes more comfortable.

The study demonstrates that a small piece of the brain can compute three different things at different times - within a quarter of a second - and shows that Broca's area doesn't just do one thing when processing language.

The study demonstrates that a small piece of the brain can compute three different things at different times - within a quarter of a second - and shows that Broca's area doesn't just do one thing when processing language.