The Design of Everyday Things
Donald A. Norman
Summary: In this book, Donald A. Norman introduces design concepts that are necessary to understand and follow in order to develop successful designs. Visibility, mappings, affordances, constraints, feedback, conceptual models, and design models are all important and throughout the book Norman discusses and gives examples how these can be use to develop great designs. Norman recognizes design is not an easy task and one of the main reasons is because designers have to meet the expectations of many, including the manufacture, the stores, and of course the customers.
As humans, sometimes we make ourselves believe certain misconceptions and erroneous ideas in the efforts of making out lives simpler. Many of us, at some point of our lives, have falsely blamed ourselves about not being able to use an object, when in reality the object has a bad design, and we are not the only ones having trouble with it. Another example is blaming the wrong cause for something else that happened just because one occurred right after the other. Norman explains we are explanatory creatures, thus we try to have an explanation of everything. He identifies the concepts of learned and taught to be reasons behind self blame. Norman also presents the Seven Stages of Action that individuals "use" when carrying out an action.
We make "mistakes" all the time. Norman discusses the relationship between errors and the design of everyday things. He differentiates between mistakes and slips - slips are errors in the execution of the action, we try doing something, but end up doing something else; mistakes on the other side are errors of though, we aim at an "inappropriate goal." Norman tries to give a logical explanation to errors. Norman then introduces the concept of tasks, and how there are part of our daily life; we don't really have to give them much thought before performing them. This leads to the discussion of conscious and subconscious behavior, where Norman discusses how humans react to explaining away errors; how social pressure can sometimes lead to mistakes; and how forcing functions try to avoid errors, but sometimes they are not designed properly.
Norman also relates design to knowledge. He makes the distinction between knowledge we keep in our minds and knowledge we keep in the world, objects we keep around us. Many expert typists cannot spell out the order in which the letters are ordered in a keyboard, and people that "memorize" poems do not really memorize line by line, but they have the ability to recite such poems thanks to constrains found in the lyrics. These are just examples of activities that we can perform, even though we do not have the detailed knowledge to reproduce the relating activity. According to Norman, the knowledge we keep in easier to retrieve than that we keep in the head; it is not necessary to learn what we keep in the world, but it is necessary to learn what to keep in the head and keeping knowledge in the head may be more efficient to use than that of the world, depending on the environment.
As mentioned before, designing is not an easy task. Norman explains the natural evolution of design, which is not always possible to obtain. He also claims designers put the aesthetic goals before usability and effectiveness, which is something he disagrees with. Another problem is that designers are not able to identify the flaws of their own designs. The reason being that they are not the typical users, they have worked on this design for so long that they think there is no ambiguity in its use. Also, the designer's clients are not the users of the designs, thus explaining the many factors that designers try to accomplish (marketability for example) before usability. Another problem is trying to design for everyone who can use a device, there are many special characteristics of users and one design alone cannot meet all expectations.
In the final chapter of the book, Norman summarizes and uses all the concepts discussed in previous chapters to provide designers with a set of seven principles that can transform difficult tasks into simple ones. Norman analyzes how technology and design affect society in both positive and negative ways, and reiterates the importance of good design. Norman advices designers to take the challenge of designing and analyzing designs, users to analyze design as well and congratulate those designers that are doing a good job developing usable and desirable products.
Discussion: I had never in my life read a book about design. It was really interesting to read about things that maybe I had though about before, but never really realized how significant they were. The examples and the ideas, I would read and say "that's so true!." Norman does a great job in explaining the psychology behind our behavior and how we interact with objects. His explanations about mistakes and misconceptions about how things work make a lot of sense.
Summary: In this book, Donald A. Norman introduces design concepts that are necessary to understand and follow in order to develop successful designs. Visibility, mappings, affordances, constraints, feedback, conceptual models, and design models are all important and throughout the book Norman discusses and gives examples how these can be use to develop great designs. Norman recognizes design is not an easy task and one of the main reasons is because designers have to meet the expectations of many, including the manufacture, the stores, and of course the customers.
As humans, sometimes we make ourselves believe certain misconceptions and erroneous ideas in the efforts of making out lives simpler. Many of us, at some point of our lives, have falsely blamed ourselves about not being able to use an object, when in reality the object has a bad design, and we are not the only ones having trouble with it. Another example is blaming the wrong cause for something else that happened just because one occurred right after the other. Norman explains we are explanatory creatures, thus we try to have an explanation of everything. He identifies the concepts of learned and taught to be reasons behind self blame. Norman also presents the Seven Stages of Action that individuals "use" when carrying out an action.
We make "mistakes" all the time. Norman discusses the relationship between errors and the design of everyday things. He differentiates between mistakes and slips - slips are errors in the execution of the action, we try doing something, but end up doing something else; mistakes on the other side are errors of though, we aim at an "inappropriate goal." Norman tries to give a logical explanation to errors. Norman then introduces the concept of tasks, and how there are part of our daily life; we don't really have to give them much thought before performing them. This leads to the discussion of conscious and subconscious behavior, where Norman discusses how humans react to explaining away errors; how social pressure can sometimes lead to mistakes; and how forcing functions try to avoid errors, but sometimes they are not designed properly.
Norman also relates design to knowledge. He makes the distinction between knowledge we keep in our minds and knowledge we keep in the world, objects we keep around us. Many expert typists cannot spell out the order in which the letters are ordered in a keyboard, and people that "memorize" poems do not really memorize line by line, but they have the ability to recite such poems thanks to constrains found in the lyrics. These are just examples of activities that we can perform, even though we do not have the detailed knowledge to reproduce the relating activity. According to Norman, the knowledge we keep in easier to retrieve than that we keep in the head; it is not necessary to learn what we keep in the world, but it is necessary to learn what to keep in the head and keeping knowledge in the head may be more efficient to use than that of the world, depending on the environment.
As mentioned before, designing is not an easy task. Norman explains the natural evolution of design, which is not always possible to obtain. He also claims designers put the aesthetic goals before usability and effectiveness, which is something he disagrees with. Another problem is that designers are not able to identify the flaws of their own designs. The reason being that they are not the typical users, they have worked on this design for so long that they think there is no ambiguity in its use. Also, the designer's clients are not the users of the designs, thus explaining the many factors that designers try to accomplish (marketability for example) before usability. Another problem is trying to design for everyone who can use a device, there are many special characteristics of users and one design alone cannot meet all expectations.
In the final chapter of the book, Norman summarizes and uses all the concepts discussed in previous chapters to provide designers with a set of seven principles that can transform difficult tasks into simple ones. Norman analyzes how technology and design affect society in both positive and negative ways, and reiterates the importance of good design. Norman advices designers to take the challenge of designing and analyzing designs, users to analyze design as well and congratulate those designers that are doing a good job developing usable and desirable products.
Discussion: I had never in my life read a book about design. It was really interesting to read about things that maybe I had though about before, but never really realized how significant they were. The examples and the ideas, I would read and say "that's so true!." Norman does a great job in explaining the psychology behind our behavior and how we interact with objects. His explanations about mistakes and misconceptions about how things work make a lot of sense.
One thing I like about this book is that it can be read by anyone. It is written in an easy to understand and easy to read format, that gives not trouble when reading. Another aspect of the book that I found useful was how every chapter build on the previous one. The concepts introduced in the very first chapter are utilized in the last one in order to wrap up the book with a small guide designer can follow.
Something I did notice is some kind of repetitiveness. I am not sure if it is because Norman expands on a small concept or because every chapter is linked to each other, but at times I just felt I was reading the same thing over and over again.
Overall, this booked changed my perspective about things, things we use every day. From the first chapter until the last there was always something new, a new concept to learn about. And I enjoyed seeing how Norman's methodologies show up on some other readings for this class and outside of class as well.
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