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Design of Everyday Things - Chapter 1 (Norman 2013) (Main Ideas (Focus of…
Design of Everyday Things - Chapter 1 (Norman 2013)
Main Ideas
Two characteristics of good design
Discovery
Is it possible to figure out what actions are possible?
Understanding
How should the product be used?
Products should also be delightful and enjoyable
Focus of Major Areas of Design
Industrial Design
service of creating & developing concepts and specs that optimize function, value and appearance to benefit both user and manufacturer
Interaction Design
focus on user interaction with technology
what can be done, what is happening, what just occurred
draws upon psychology, art, design and emotion
Experience Design
practice of designing products, processes, services, events, environments with a focus on the quality and enjoyment of the total experience
Human Centered Design
designs match the needs and capabilities of the people for whom they are intended
it is a philosophy and set of procedures versus a focus
Discoverability results from application of 5 fundamental psychological concepts
Affordances
relationship between the physical object and person
JJ Gibson "Information pickup"
visible affordances provide strong clues to the operations of things (signifiers)
not always perceivable
Signifiers
communicate where the action should take place
doesn't have to be intentionally placed
must be perceivable else they fail to function
what actions are possible and how they should be done
Mapping
controls and functions
Feedback
communicating the results of an action
Conceptual Model
highly simplified explanation of how something works
good conceptual model allows us to predict the results of our actions
system image
culmination of all information about an object
good communication is the key to a good conceptual model
Analysis
Questions raised by the author
As devices become more complex, how do we design?
Setting standards solves the 'how' to design,but how do we get common agreement?
Intended Audience
Everyday people: to recognize absurd designs
Technical people & designers: to be better designers
Reflection
On Feedback: Norman speaks of making choices of light vs sound. We need to be able to use multiple to account for those who cannot hear or see.
On Feedback: dummy feedback of the hourglass when the system is "working". More of a pacifier than true feedback. I remember telling my Mother that if she shook the mouse rapidly, it would cause the sand in the hourglass to drop faster and her application would load faster. (Yes, I know, I'm going to hell for that. I certainly caught hell when she realized she'd been duped)
Comments that Norman makes throughout the chapter seem to suggest that we need to make machines more complex so that they adapt to humans and all the complexity of human behavior!
If the goal of design is for the object to be intuitive: whose intuition are we using to base the design on?
Quote
"It is not our duty to understand the arbitrary, meaningless dictates of machines." (Norman p.6)
In this chapter, Norman is setting the foundation for what constitutes good design and why good design is important. He holds that humans should not have to figure out how to use something if it is properly designed. An object's functionality should be evident and intuitive.