Microsoft Research Principal Scientist Bill Buxton argues that “by thinking outside the parameters imposed by technology, executives and designers can build businesses by creating an experience that truly resonates”.
“User-centered design commonly tries to take into account different canonical user types through the use of persona. Perhaps one thing we need to do is to augment this tool with the notion of “placona,” that is, capturing the canonical set of physical and social spaces within which any activity we are trying to support might be situated. After all, cognition does not reside exclusively in the brain. Rather, it is also distributed in the space in which we exercise that knowledge—in the location itself, the tools, devices, and materials that we use, and the people and social context in which all of this exists. “