On Designing software

A friend of mine pointed me out today to the Modo 201 event video for SIGGRAPH’05. While I am still less than a couple of minutes through the video, I was very interested by the way Luxology presented their goals for Modo. I believe it’s the simplest and most efficient set of goals I have seen for a piece of software. Quoted from their slide decks:

“– Cutting edge toolset.

– Advanced software ergonomics.

– Painless pipeline integration.

– Streamline learning path.

“

I believe Software ergonomics in this context is a synonym to usability.

The point that attracts my attention the most is the third one: “Painless pipeline integration”. Great software products should not ask us to change the way we do things; it should observe what we do, decides where its role will fit in our pipeline (hopefully at the bottleneck of our struggles) and how it will make our transition to this new software almost transparent.

Is AI getting too friendly?

The new york times has an article about Vivienne, a virtual girlfriend built by Artificial Life Inc.

“Vivienne likes to be taken to movies and bars. She loves to be given virtual flowers and chocolates, and she can translate six languages if you travel overseas. She never undresses, although she has some skimpy outfits for the gym, and is a tease who draws the line at anything beyond blowing kisses.”

Are people getting so lonely that their only way out would be to have a virtual companion? This raises the recurring question: Is technology bringing us together? Or is it drawing us more apart?