A once dingy classroom in Eaton Hall looked more like the bridge of the Star Ship Enterprise last night. Large TV's with cameras and microphones were positioned on every surface. People talked to the TVs, and the people on the TVs answered.
"I come from the industry with peace," said a man in front of the room, holding up two fingers like Captain Kirk..
In a speech about the computer industry, Alan Cooper, a technology guru, said that software is overburdened with features and is too difficult to use. His condemnation, which included technologies ranging from laser printers to cell phones, said software engineers should think about users in the design phase.
Using $50,000 in video conferencing equipment recently installed in the classroom, Cooper said people should not have to adapt to technology. "It has to stop," he said.
Cooper said software design should reflect the needs of computer users. The automated telephone systems at giant corporations, he said, are not designed to help customers. The software behind the "Press 1 for technical support" was created by programmers out of touch with actual users, he said.
Cooper's speech, which was available to Tufts' Boston and Grafton campuses via Internet 2 video conferencing, catered to an eclectic mix of computer science students, professors, and administration technology officials. About 35 people attended the speech in Eaton.
According to political science Professor Ken Portney, yesterday's speaker event was the debutante ball for the expensive equipment, but only three people watched from remote locations.
In his speech, Cooper, who wrote software in the 1980s, said computer programmers are born and not made. He was not a born programmer, but learned the trade working closely with programmers.
In addition to adding useless features, Cooper said a culture of rushing to market leads to inferior technology. Companies founded in the dot-com boom of the late '90s built themselves around a corporate culture that encouraged rush work, Cooper said, adding that products rushed into the market are less efficient than those created with good design and planning.
Cooper started in the computer business 25 years ago and was instrumental in the invention of technology still used today, including the visual programming language in the Microsoft Office suite. The consulting company he founded specializes in technology, design, and usability.
Author of "The Inmates are Running the Asylum," a book that argues that computer programmers are far removed from users, Cooper said the software industry should learn from Hollywood, where heavy emphasis is placed on pre-production work.
Software companies, he said, should spend more time planning and designing on paper, where it is easier to start over or discard bad ideas. Poor code, he said, "never gets thrown away." Companies continue to use poorly-designed code and focus on new features over good design.
His talk, interspersed with coded engineering jokes, emphasized engineers' inability to understand users. "I'm human. I am an engineer. So I am a human engineer," he said.
He said software designers emphasize speed in early production, under the assumption that they will improve the software for future versions. These revisions, Cooper said, rarely take place. "Because we cannot manage it, let's do it faster," he said. "This process is toxic."
Students and designers can learn from user testing for future designs, but by the time a piece of software reaches the testing phase, massive amounts of money have been poured into the coding, he said. The attention to users must come before the coding.
Answering a question about usability testing, Cooper reiterated the need for software designers to undertake advanced planning.
Similar video conferencing facilities were built at the veterinary and medical schools and attendees could see the audiences on large TVs. Professors from Tufts medical school, however, attended the lecture in person.
The Afilliated Computer Services paid for video conferencing equipment in Medford and Grafton using money from the Tufts Computing and Communications Services budget. The medical school provided the funding for its own Tandberg system.
The video conferencing system, which consists of televisions and remote controlled video cameras, can use older ISDN technology or newer IP technology employed by the Internet 2.
The Eaton classroom, the only one of its type on the Medford campus, required extensive renovations.
