Hi all! I just wrote a blog-post version of a paper I submitted to PPIG (Psychology of Programming 2019) The blog post is: https://blog.coda.io/how-coda-helps-people-overcome-technology-freeze-2132fabd4190 The actual paper I'll upload here. I'm sketching out a way to connect recent nervous system breakthroughs to programmable UI design, taking inspiration from how cognitive science breakthroughs anchored original UI design for the Alto. I'd love to hear what it brings to mind from this community.

love the title. love the blog post. excited to read the pdf later this week. initially reminds me of this tweet i saw today: https://twitter.com/rainmaker1973/status/972581494806994945?s=12

Can’t help but find your approach trying to connect UI/UX to how humans think a very promising one. I got really excited when I started reading the blog post, thinking, “can this possibly go the same direction I’m thinking about?”, but then you drift off specializing on the nervous system and the freeze response. Which makes it even more exciting, as we probably have stuff to talk about… I’m looking at categorization and research in idealized cognitive models to draw parallels to what people (want to) do with computers. Currently, programmers clearly favor a symbolic approach, which requires learning abstract categories and concepts that are hard to pick up by end users, who just don’t want to put in the time to learn all that. UIs use metaphors and other structures to make computers more accessible. I think there is tremendous potential to take what we know about metaphorical structuring, metonymy, kinesthetic image schemas, etc. and see how we can take advantage of these in UI. Ideally, we’ll massively reduce the learning curve as the right metaphors “just click” with users as they leverage fundamental patterns of how we think. I’ve started to write about, hoping to get more technical people interested in that domain and trying to make the research more accessible to us programmers: https://stefan-lesser.com/2019/12/06/structure-and-behavior/ I think we’re very similar in approach (leveraging neuro-science) and found different areas in that huge domain to focus on. Would love to compare notes and see how this all fits together.

Hi and thank you both! Hi @Stefan! Part of my reasoning in "Winter is Coding" - which I kind of rush through - is that a lot of the work in Xerox PARC I saw as setting one possible foundation for how cognitive science maps into natural UIs for programming (the whole 'doing with images makes symbols' bit.) I also am personally just very interested in the nervous system - it feels very 'topical' to 2020 [just wrote 2019!] and this moment in time. But I do wonder if there's something there for you, that you've seen or is otherwise of interest. I hope we can engage more!

Very interesting @nagle. I read your paper, and I fully agree on the connection between cognitive science and UI design. I especially liked the example of the polyvagal theory: freeze response as last resort (non)solution! I believe 1) user interface design and 2) cognitive science & philosophy of mind are both talking about the exact same thing. A typical example is The Extended Mind theory by Andy Clark and David Chalmers: http://cogprints.org/320/1/extended.html In mind and consciousness research (such as the paper above), we're trying to account for how the mind works, why are we making a separation between mind and body, and, eventually, we start taking the body seriously and develop theories that ground us as embodied creatures within a concrete environment. At that point, the connection with human computer interaction seems almost obvious. I think there's a vast literature in cognitive science and philosophy of mind from which HCI people could steal valuable thinking tools.