The Human Interface Technology Centre (HITC), an Atlanta-based department of computer company NCR, is working to adapt computers to people.

David Rubini, manager of interactive user-centred design services, said the field of cognitive engineers - those with psychology and computer science backgrounds - was growing as the need to reconcile computers with people became a business and marketing problem.

HITC uses focus groups to help discover how to simplify technology. Mr Rubini described the first attempt to design an idiot-proof computer which could be installed without a manual.

The first person got everything right, but then picked up the mouse and clicked at the computer screen, using the mouse as a remote control device.

'We all laughed the first time we saw that,' he said. 'It wasn't as funny when seven out of 20 people did the same thing. We realised this was a significant problem.' HITC is working on several projects from emergency medical equipment to cash registers. HITC executives conducted the medical project in a semi-sound-proof room, testing speech equipment for a doctor to automatically transmit a patient's vital statistics at a noisy emergency site to the hospital. This way when the patient arrived immediate and proper care could be administered without delay.

Simulated sirens and helicopter sounds tested the product's sensitivity to noise.

Diego Castano, a cognitive engineer, gave a demonstration of new technology for supermarket cashiers.

Most people have experienced a bad day at the supermarket, with the cashier ringing up onions as apples and jicamas as squash.

The cashier would wear a headset with a microphone dangling at the mouth. Most packaged items would still swish across the scanner with a bar code. Vegetables and fruits that need to be identified and weighed would be rung up using speech-activated computer technology.

If the item was a mystery - as the large, brown-skinned jicamas probably are to the masses - the cashier could attempt to identify the object by using voice commands and pictures on the screen.

Mr Castano demonstrated by slowly enunciating the word squash - speech technology has not quite reached the colloquial and cashiers will admittedly sound like voice car alarms for a couple more years.

Squash pulled up a set of pictures on the computer screen, listing all the varieties of that vegetable. Eventually a sub-group showed a similar object to the jicama and he was able to speak the name item and ring it up.

HITC does more than just try to bring technology down a notch in terms of usability. The company is working on hi-tech projects such as virtual retailing to advance companies' marketing ploys.

HITC's Mark Tarlton previewed a virtual mall. The 'consumer experience in cyberspace' demands more bandwidth than most home users have at the moment. Virtual retailing is gearing up for the future.

Mr Tarlton demonstrated how design would play a strategic role in encouraging consumers to shop on-line, avoiding the trampling crowds of shopping malls. 'We use a 'city' metaphor to encourage users to explore their options,' he said.

Users enter from the bird's-eye view and gaze at several virtual cities. Picking a city, the user swoops down to ground level to take a look around.

He said HITC had initially received the 'no go' from a customer when they presented the idea of food aisles and shopping carts in virtual space.

'They said it wouldn't work, so we went back to the drawing board. Our studies eventually showed that most people are hesitant to buy fresh foods without actually touching and smelling them,' he said. 'So we had to come up with an idea that would give the user a reason to use this new medium.' They hit upon food catering and menu planning, complete with ingredients and preparation hints. Mr Tarlton clicked into the food court, which led to a pseudo subterranean department of international cuisine houses, and chose Italian food. A virtual, mustachioed maitre d' appeared to guide the user through menu choices.

HITC also incorporates societal issues into these forward-thinking concepts. Mr Rubini said technology's meteoric blast to the future had often let human issues fall by the wayside.

'When the cellular phone was invented, nobody thought about the repercussions, such as increased car accidents because people were paying more attention to talking than to driving,' he said. 'Only now are laws coming into effect to deal with this problem.' He admitted that HITC had no intention of stopping technological progress and that there was the threat of losing a physical sense of community as people became more dependent on computers.

'But I don't believe we will lose touch with one another,' he said. 'People will always want to interact face to face for some reason.' The more mundane tasks such as grocery shopping could be left to a click on the Internet. Peapod Grocery Shopping in San Francisco already offers a service for the supermarket averse.