Technology and cognitive ability: the use of new technologies and the design of digital interfaces Olavo Bessa a* a Faculty of Design, Department of Arts, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Av. Salgado Filho 3000. Campus Universitário, Lagoa Nova, Natal (RN) - CEP 59078-970 Abstract. This study is guided by the principle that there is no technology detached from an ideology. This ideology appears in the interfaces conditioning the relationship between people and digital artifacts. This article adopts as theoretical reference the User-Centered Design (UCD). Under the UCD principles it is presented a key to understand how technology is a vehicle of ideological content that affects the design practices. Keywords: usability; interaction; UCD; interface, technology * Corresponding author. E-mail: olavo.bessa@live.it 1. Introduction The word technique must be readily distinguished from the word technology. Technique in this study is understood as a set of rules that leads to a specific application of scientific knowledge useful to achieve an end. Technology, instead, is interpreted as the theoretical study of the technique or a set of technical knowledge. We do not want to discuss epistemologi- cal or ontological issues existing in the relations among technology, science and politics. We want rather to point out that the ideological context of knowledge appears on the interfaces of technological devices with which people must interact. In short, we do not want do investigate the instruments of power with backgrounds in technology, but note that technology is a vehicle of ideological content that affects the design practices. There is no technique or technology, apart from an ideology, both in its formation and in its approval instances. From product design, through the packaging, the manufacturing and transportation, until to reach the consumers’ houses, the entire production process is outlined by ideological decisions that affect the interfaces of con- sumer devices. 2. Technique, technology and interaction Interface is the possible interaction between two independent systems [37]. The human interaction with technological devices is therefore only one of many possible types of interaction between two or among many independent systems. To say that hu- mans and technological devices are two independent systems means to say that both have different struc- tures. By filtering these structures, some possibilities of interaction appear. In this context, the way internal processors are organized, displayers, dials and con- trols are filters. As well, the mechanism of perception and the people cognitive processes are filters too. But we can note that it has fewer and fewer boundaries between technology and people. Furthermore, less and less we have to learn how to use devices which are becoming more a part of us [27]. 3. Technology, interfaces and ideology Many authors [34] [23] [10] [12] [1] [20] [27] state their pessimism about technology, blaming it to Work 41 (2012) 1296-1304 DOI: 10.3233/WOR-2012-0315-1296 IOS Press 1296 1051-9815/12/$27.50 © 2012 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved