Author
Hoffman, Feltovich, Ford and Woods
Year
2002
A rose by any other name...would probably be given an acronym (the un-fitts list)
Hoffman, Feltovich, Ford and Woods. 2002. (View Paper → )
The paper critiques the original Fitts’ List for focusing too heavily on human shortcomings and for encouraging designs that merely “patch” human limits. The Un-Fitts List instead spotlights human adaptability, context-awareness, and creativity—showing how machines can augment (rather than replace) these strengths and how humans, in turn, keep machines properly tuned to the real world.
Un-Fitts List
Machines Are constrained in that:
- Sensitivity to context is low and ontology-limited
- Recognition of change/anomaly is ontology-limited
- Adaptability to change is low and goal-limited
- They are not “aware” that the model of the world is itself in the world
They need people to:
- Keep them aligned to the context
- Stabilise them when the world changes
- Repair their ontologies
- Keep the model aligned with reality
People
Are not limited in that:
- Sensitivity to context is high and knowledge-/attention-driven
- Recognition of change/anomaly is high
- Adaptability to change is high and goal-driven
- They are aware that their model of the world exists within the world
Yet they create machines to:
- Help them stay informed of ongoing events
- Align and repair perceptions, since human sensing is mediated
- Affect positive change in response to shifting situations
- Continuously instantiate their models of the world