Bill Buxton on social prosthetics and social factors in telepresence
Bill Buxton in conversation with Nora Young, at Mesh 08 in Toronto.
Our recent post on Bill Buxton was about his OOM (Order Of Magnitude) rule and how to use it to overcome creative blocks. This entry is about Buxton’s take on good design for telepresence and online collaboration technologies.
Speaking at the recent Mesh 08 web conference, and perhaps channeling Marshall McLuhan, Buxton described the role of a computer’s screen, speaker, microphone and camera as social prosthetics that extend the functions of human hearing, speech and sight online. He also proposed that both the social prosthetics as well as real world social factors have to be taken into account in order to design online collaboration technologies that are simultaneously less intrusive and more engaging.
To make one of his points about the disruptive nature of today’s online conferencing tools, Buxton staged an impromptu experiment of social intrusion (6:05 on the video) with the involuntary help of his interviewer Nora Young. The resulting reactions are both hilarious and informative.
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