The Human Factor

Written by Dr. Kim Vicente, a human factors specialist, the book outlines the myriad of instances where some common sense thinking would make life more easier. Many might think, after reading that, how much more easier do you want life to be after so much technological advances and remote accesses?
As much as I would like to say that technology has helped us make some things easier, to actually learn to operate them in the first place is so much more complicated than I'd rather do the caveman way, as a first time user.
The humour in this book comes from the fact that the author outlines the steps to complete a certain task - which, as a reader and as a daily user of that object, seem to make no logical sense. One of the classic examples that I read, and have heard in my classes, is the process of checking the engine oil. I don't know if there are actually cars that are manufactured that way, but I do remember my father doing those steps some years ago. As a child, I felt happy clicking and flipping the switches he asked me to, but the amount of information that he had to store to complete one task was amazing and horrendous. So now, the car has made my life easy with the quick driving, but maintenance is a different pain.
This is just one of the few examples that he gives to show the gap between creations and their intuitiveness. Some of the examples are absolutely hilarious and the ease with which he relates personal events to the readers is all the more enjoyable.