Cooper Interaction Design Releases Sun Jini From Bottle.PALO ALTO Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 16, 1998-- Software design firm collaborates with Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982. to unleash real -world potential of breakthrough technology Sun Microsystem's breakthrough Jini technology promises to revolutionize how people interact with computers. Exactly how to achieve that, however, was unclear to Sun until they contacted Cooper Interaction Design (CID Cid or Cid Campeador (sĭd, Span. thēth kämpāäthōr`) [Span.,=lord conqueror], d. 1099, Spanish soldier and national hero, whose real name was Rodrigo (or Ruy) Díaz de Vivar. ), a Palo Alto design firm, to discover how best to apply Sun's JAVA-based networking technology that promises to make installing machines on a computer network as easy to do as plugging in a telephone. "Sun's new Jini technology has the potential to revolutionize our entire computing landscape," said Alan Cooper, president of Cooper Interaction Design. "But regardless of its power, technology untempered by design is hard to understand, hard to use, and difficult to benefit from." Cooper Interaction Design saw more than potential for Jini: they saw real-world solutions that will have an immediate impact on the business community. CID's vision of the Jini user experience not only makes machines in the workplace easy to install, but makes them active, always-available resources instead of passive resources that require discovery and configuration. "Sun has taken a great leap forward Great Leap Forward, 1957–60, Chinese economic plan aimed at revitalizing all sectors of the economy. Initiated by Mao Zedong, the plan emphasized decentralized, labor-intensive industrialization, typified by the construction of thousands of backyard steel in the industry, not only by creating an exciting and revolutionary technology, but by having the foresight to make the design of the user experience a priority at the highest conceptual level," said Robert Reimann Robert Reimann is the name of:
After performing a detailed investigation for Sun that included field research and interviewing key Sun employees involved with the Jini project, CID created several user "personas" who could benefit from Jini, such as an administrative assistant, MIS technician, sales representative, trainer, and manager. These carefully crafted personas reflect archetypal ar·che·type n. 1. An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype: "'Frankenstein' . . . 'Dracula' . . . 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' . . . people in a workplace that require interaction with several types of machines such as computers, printers, projectors, telecommunication devices, PDAs, and so forth. CID then drafted a vision statement and conceptual design for Jini that serves the needs of these personas. "Our contribution to Jini was to provide a design for Jini that delivers both power and pleasure to human users," said Cooper. "Because Jini does things people need and want, it becomes effectively more powerful in the eyes of its users." During the conceptual design phase of the project, the company created a design for the complete software interface that uses Jini technology, and supplied detailed scenarios describing how the user personas use the software to ease their interaction with the multitude of machines that make up their workplace. The resulting design takes full advantage of Jini's ability to "know" when a hardware device is plugged in and available, as well as what abilities the hardware device has, such as a printer's ability to print color, and whether or not it has any paper in its tray. More exciting in CID's design is Jini's awareness of a person's identity: resources are made available based on where the person is and what she is doing. "Jini technology will provide people with a presence and a sense of place in a universe of networked devices and services," said Reimann. "For the first time, we can look forward to a coherent user experience for dynamic networks of humans and information systems." Cooper is working with other Sun customers on innovative product designs for devices and software that take advantage of the potential that Jini has to offer. About Cooper Interaction Design CID has developed a proprietary Goal Directed(TM) design methodology that meticulously defines the goals of the user in advance of engineering specifications and iterative it·er·a·tive adj. 1. Characterized by or involving repetition, recurrence, reiteration, or repetitiousness. 2. Grammar Frequentative. Noun 1. prototyping processes. CID's methodology, applied within the context of the client's development cycle, promotes product designs that yield dramatic gains in the effectiveness of the software and the acceptance by the user. The design method is teachable teach·a·ble adj. 1. That can be taught: teachable skills. 2. Able and willing to learn: teachable youngsters. , repeatable, and widely applicable based on user personas, design axioms This is a list of axioms as that term is understood in mathematics, by Wikipedia page. In epistemology, the word axiom is understood differently; see axiom and self-evidence. Individual axioms are almost always part of a larger axiomatic system. and proprietary Cooper Design Concepts. Cooper Interaction Design can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.cooper.com. Cooper Interaction Design is a privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. . Founded in 1993, Cooper Interaction Design helps companies' design interactive products that provide power and pleasure to the people who use them. Cooper's client list includes Adobe, Coca Cola Noun 1. Coca Cola - Coca Cola is a trademarked cola Coke cola, dope - carbonated drink flavored with extract from kola nuts (`dope' is a southernism in the United States) , Fujitsu, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Logitech, Quantum, Remedy, Sagent Technology, Sony, Sun Microsystems, 3M Corporation, Varian and other promising Silicon Valley startups.
CONTACT: Cooper Interaction Design
Glenn Halstead, 650/855-0250
Email: glenn@cooper.com
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