About this blog

I started working in IT as a technical writer, creating training materials, user guides, and help systems for software. Next, I took a job as a business analyst, acting as an intermediary between customers and the development team. One day, my boss said Find out what ‘usability’ is and see if we need to get any of it. So I did. It was as if someone switched on a light. I’ve been an obsessive nuisance on the subject of user centred design ever since.

Eventually, someone gave me a job in which I get paid for doing this. I currently work at iQ Content in Dublin, Ireland, doing consulting work for lots of interesting clients (in that connection, see my disclaimer).

I am originally from Derry, in Northern Ireland, which is small, out of the way and rather damp. Nice place though, lots of good people. I have lived and worked in Dublin for more than 12 years now, so it feels more like home. More importantly, Dublin has a sufficiently diverse economy to support workers as rarified as usability consultants. Derry has some catching up to do in that regard.

My Exoself

In Greg Egan’s novels, the term exoself describes the external-facing parts of an uploaded mind. It struck me that all of the various bits of my online presence served the same purpose. Here are the bits I’m willing to share:

  • Contact email – You can contact me at the following address: .
  • LinkedIn – Most of my social graph is work related (that says a lot about my life, sadly) and lives on my LinkedIn profile.
  • Company blog – I write for my company blog, The iQ Blog, although not as often as I should.
  • Twitter – I tweet as Cogfric, if you are of a mind to listen to my inane daily ramblings

I have a profile on Facebook, and you can find me in Facebook groups such as the UPA and the IxDA.

What is Cognitive Friction?

Cognitive Friction is a term first used by Alan Cooper in his book The Inmates are Running the Asylum, where he defines it like this:

“It is the resistance encountered by a human intellect when it engages with a complex system of rules that change as the problem permutes.”

In other words, when tools manifest complex behaviour that does not fit our expectations, people get frustrated. The challenge of designing to avoid that kind of frustration is what got me into this line of work, so it seemed like a good name for this blog.

Disclaimer

The contents of this blog are the work and responsibility of the author alone and do not represent the views of my employer. Posts are not submitted for review or approval by my employer before publication.