by Mark Robinson

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Computer Hell

From the theorists in the communication department to the techies over in computer science, Stanford researchers are working on ways to make the rise of the information age a little simpler for everyone. More than 20 professors and dozens of graduate students are wrestling with the problem of computer "usability," and companies from Silicon Valley and beyond are helping finance much of the work. And why not? asks Clifford Nass, associate professor of communication. "The companies that say, 'This has got to be a consumer-friendly product' are the ones that are going to win," he notes. A sampling of some of the most interesting research:

The Project on Social Responses to Communication Technology People are suckers for flattery--even when the flattery comes from a chatty on-screen animation. That's one of the discoveries Nass and his communication department colleague Byron Reeves have made in the five years they've been studying the ways humans deal with computers. Their major insight: People treat computers as "social actors." That finding could bring about a revolution in the way users give commands and the way the machines respond. In the future, look for PCs that schmooze. "You could do a lot worse than have computers follow the Dale Carnegie method," Nass says.

The Stanford Computer Industry Project Begun in 1991, the project is aimed at figuring out the underlying dynamics of the computer industry. More than a dozen professors and a research staff are looking into the future of the ultra-affordable "network computer," the competitive dynamics of the software business and the potential for using high-end information technology to manage companies worldwide. "We were so lucky to stumble onto this," says Avron Barr, co-director of the project's software research team. "It's been fun trying to figure out how to study an industry that doesn't stay still for a day."

Digital Libraries Project The library of the future will sit on your desktop and allow you to slice and dice information from libraries and databases all over the world. That's the idea behind digital libraries, a four-year project based partly at Stanford. One of the biggest challenges for researchers: coming up with an interface that makes it easy for users to work with, say, video, audio and text from different sources all at once. A few prototypes have already been tested, says computer science Professor Terry Winograd, the project's co-principal investigator. "We're trying to simplify the world that the information user sees."