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THE GEEK INHERIT THE EARTH
LOUISE TREWAVAS
IT WAS NEVER LIKE THIS IN THE MOVIES. The overweight, middle-aged, bearded man at the front of the room is banging on about his favourite subject. And I'm paying for the privilege of being here. Well, what did I expect, James Bond?!
But this is no diving lecture. The subject is usability - how well (or badly) technologies engage the user. The audience is lapping it up.
I'm at the UK Usability Awards, part of World Usability Day. Forget the scary man at the front, I'm beginning to frighten myself now.
The simple truth is that technology has taken over every aspect of our lives. If you thought the film Matrix was whimsical fancy, then that's exactly what they want you to believe!
Take dive-boat skippers. You will need to wash your hands afterwards, so let's just take the example of dive-boat skippers.
Rough, tough, men of the sea. Men who are at one with their boat engine. Men who can merely sniff a south-westerly wind and will instinctively be able to tell you what the sea state at your dive site will be. Men who think Intel is a new theme pub where you have to pass on a piece of gossip before you can order your beer.
Well, no. The modern dive-boat has considerably more technology on board than the first Apollo space mission. Beneath that salty sea-dog exterior, your modern skipper is Geek.
No, no, not Greek. You won't find them serving olives and Retsina between dives. Geek: technology-loving, computer-hugging, smart-arse. And divers? We live for the experience - it's physically involving, it's an adventure! Diving is the triumph of pleasure-seeking over common sense. Surely, we are the antithesis of Geek.
As you read this, I'm sure you recognise that the argument is already hopelessly lost. Diving might have been regarded as cool in the 1960s but the awful truth is that not even the sight of a Jessica Alba in scuba gear, wiggling her bikini-clad bottom to squeeze inside a wreck, can rescue diving from the kingdom of Geek.
Sadly, many divers would be too excited by the sight of an intact underwater plane and too busy faffing with their array of gadgets even to notice Ms Alba's perfect behind.
Diving is an equipment-intensive sport. It offers a host of technical challenges, and attracts kit-fetishists and obsessive gadgeteers. In a world increasingly dominated by Geeks, this factor alone may ensure the future success of diving. If you don't like technology, stick to snorkelling. (Simpleton!)
We all know divers who make Bill Gates look like a technophobe. Which brings me back to Mr Usability UK, aka Bill Thompson, "new media pioneer" and Guardian journalist in need of a decent haircut.
His speech was an attack on the idea that good usability means making everything so simple that even the stupidest person can use it. Restricting technology to serve the lowest common denominator is self-defeating. It may be profitable, but it isn't satisfying.
Good usability is about rewarding the user for engaging. The more you engage, the more it should give you back in return, expanding what it becomes possible for you to do.
That was probably the most insightful description of why diving is such an additive sport I had ever heard. It may have come from a bloke who looked like Bill Bailey and - worse - who looked as if he would probably faint with horror if you took him on a try-dive. But what did I expect?!
Actually, it was exactly like the movies. But with Q, not Bond, as the hero.
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