Book Reading #21: Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 7: User-Centered Design

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald. A. Norman

Summary: In this chapter, Norman summarizes and uses all the concepts of previous chapters to provide designers with a set of seven principles that can transform difficult tasks into simple ones. Norman also analyzes how technology and design affect society in both positive and negative ways. The closing section to the chapter is the closing section to the book; Norman reiterates the importance of good design, 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.

Discussion: This last chapter was a good review of the book. It reminded me of the most relevant concepts, and with Norman refering back to the major examples used in the previous chapters, it was easier to understand how it all ties together. I also enjoyed reading the last small section of the chapters, which is the last section of the book... Norman encourage both, designers and users, to push for designs that will increase usability and effectivenes.

Book Reading #18: Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 6: The Design Challenge

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald A. Norman

Summary: In this chapter, Norman discusses the main challenges that design and designers face. He starts our by explaining the natural evolution of design, which is not always possible to obtain. Also, designers put the aesthetic goals before usability and effectiveness. Norman also notes that designers are not able do identify the flaws of their designs because they are not the typical users, they have worked on this design for so long that they think there is no ambiguity, etc. 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. Towards the end of the chapter, Norman focuses to the flaws and challenges on the design of computer systems.

Discussion: This chapter was extremely long, and I don't say it because of the reading load, but because Norman discusses so many ideas that it is difficult to summarize what the chapter was about in a short paragraph. I enjoyed reading the final part of the chapter where he focuses on the design of computer systems. I like how we are able to read and see connections between Norman's ideas and what we have read from the essays in HCI Remixed. The concept of "disappearing computers" shows up in this chapter as well, and Norman given a very specific example. Reading this chapter helped me better understand some of the previous readings.

Book Reading #14: The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 5:To Err is Human

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald A. Norman

Summary: In this chapter, Noman discusses the relationship between errors and the design of everyday things. Norman starts by distinguishing between slips and mistakes: 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." He defines the types of slips, as well as some models of human thought that help explain mistakes. 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.

Discussion: For me the most interesting part of this chapter was social pressure and how it has an effect on making errors. I think this part of the chapter could have been a little more emphasized, but this information still got the point across. Also, something that I don't think I will forget is concept definitions given by Norman: An error can be a mistake or a slip. A mistake is an error of thought; a slip is an error in the execution of the activity. Like in the previous chapters, I can always relate to the examples given by Norman.  

Book Reading #11: The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 4: Knowing What to Do

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald A. Norman

Summary: In this chapter, Norman analyzes different approaches regarding people knowing what to do with things that they interact with everyday, and how even though they are items we should know excatly how to use, many people still makes mistakes. He discussed four constraints in design that should help us to identify the functionality and the way items function: physical, semantic, cultural and logical constrains. Norman also discussed in further detail how the concepts of affordances, visibility and feedback enhance the understanding of knowing what to do with with things. He also discussed how adding sound to things allows for immediate feedback.

Discussion: I really enjoyed reading about the four constraints in design. Definitely, having these constraints allows users to simplify the task of understanding how an items works. For example the example of front and read lights in cars, and I think that would also apply to the traffic lights. All the examples presented in this book just make so much sense allowing us to see the important of every aspect in the design of things. For example, the sound when making a call, I can't imagine to be dialing a number and not having any sound at all!

Book Reading #8: Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald A. Norman

Summary: Throughout the chapter, Norman makes the distinction between the knowledge we keep in out minds against the knowledge we keep in objects, such as notes, calendars, computers, etc. Norman opens up the chapter by making the note that many expert typists cannot spell out the order in which the letters are ordered in a keyboard, or how 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 in 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.

Discussion: I agree with the idea that Norman introduces, if we have a strong interest or connection with a certain piece of information it is easier to keep it in our head and not to forget it. In my own example, some times I can remember conversation I had with people many years ago, but it is only because in one way or another they were significant and had an impact in my life. 

As to the information we keep in the world, I think it can be most related to activities that we ought to do, maybe as an obligation or an assignment. In today's world there are many organizational tools that individuals can use. However, there is always improvements that we can work on in order to enhance such tools, maybe in the area of signaling the reminder.

Book Reading #5: The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 2: The Psychology of Everyday Actions

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald A. Norman

Summary: In this chapter, Norman discusses some misconceptions and erroneous ideas that sometimes people decide to believe in order to make life simpler. For example, falsely blaming ourselves for not being able to use an object, when in reality the object has a bad design. Or blaming the wrong cause for something that happened only because by coincidence one happened right after the other. Norman also talks about some misconceptions that we may have about everyday life, for example the way a thermostat works; he explains that we are explanatory creatures, thus we try to have an explanation of everything. He then discusses two concepts, learned helplessness and taught helplessness, that can be the reasoning behind self blame. Lastly, he discusses the Seven Stages of Action that individuals "use" when carrying out an action.

Discussion: The examples presented in this chapter just make me remember about similar situations that I have encountered in the past, for example, having someone think that an object works one way, but in reality it doesn't, so do you tell the person that's not how it works, or do you just let it go? I have to admit I have let it go in the past. 

I like how Norman relates the principles he presented in the first chapter to the information at the end of this chapter. It helps me understand the point that he is really trying to make.

Book Reading #1: Microblogs for Design of Everyday Things

Reference Information

• Title: The Design of Everyday Things
• Author: Donald A. Norman
• Presentation: 

Chapter 1
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THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY THINGS

Summary
In this fist chapter of the book, Norman introduces how important is the design of the thousands of items we use everyday. He explains various design concepts that are necessary to recognize and analyze when designing an item such as visibility, a natural design, mappings, affordances, constraints, feedback, a conceptual model, and finally a design model. At the end of the chapter, Norman also recognizes that designing is not an easy task, and designers have to meet the expectations of the manufacture, the stores, and of course the customers.

Discussion
This first chapter made me realize that every little thing that we use has a design. Someone, somewhere sat down one day and dedicated their time to design this item, and most of the times we take these designs for granted. I mostly agree with what Norman is trying to convey, the idea that the design must be easy and fast to understand, the concept of visibility. For example, just recently I was over at a friend's house, they had a brand new stove with a completely digital board. I can easily say that it had over 25 buttons! I am sure that if I dedicate some of my time to look at all these buttons I can easily figure out its functions, but it was not designed to follow what we are naturally used to. I believe that every new thing that is added to an item should increase the technology, but it also increases the complexity. I am not sure if everybody is willing to give up the simplicity of 5 or 6 buttons on a stove to the complexity of more than 25!