Assignment #2 - Design of Everyday Things

My Reaction to Design of Everyday Things

When I first began the course and opened the book, I immediately took a disliking to it as it was a book on technology that was written many years ago. This may seem like a bad habit to some people, but I like to stay up to date with technology and usually try not to look back and analyze older technology. But as I continued reading, I found more of a psychological view on the objects he was writing about that were issues that I could relate to. He also gave many examples of basic and simple objects that he knew would remain the same for years to come and that really helped establish a feeling of relation. He gave examples of light-switches, tools, and appliances and not examples of products I never heard of. I really liked the fact that he took the time to find discussions that everyone reading could relate to.

But if I had to find something I really liked the most, it would most definitely be the psychological sides to things. Chapter five when the author talked about dealing with human error was probably the most interesting chapter that I could relate to. I like understanding how people work and like having a process to things that are usually unstable or hard to understand. Usually when I notice people around me have issues with things, people, or subjects in general, I naturally always try to find out the deeper reason why they took a disliking to it. The author states that many items aren't designed well and says it's because people forget the key elements to balancing having a good design with good functionality. Most of the time one of those areas are sacrificed for another.

In my own life, I have often found myself making the same mistake when trying to operate a product. Some of the times I can never get a light switch correct when attempting to turn it on in the dark. The same process applies when I try to turn on my fan at night. Half of the time I pull the light cord instead of the fan. Examples like these are what the author mentions and I really do think it is a subject that could be further expanded upon.

In conclusion, I really liked the book. I was initially proven wrong when the book began a deeper and more thoughtful analysis over the things we do wrong and often overlook. These usually consists of small things that seem too insignificant to expand upon and attempt to fix. I think that the book is a good topic for this class and really helps people think about how their product will be seen and used by their end-user. Overlooking this area I think is a bad choice and is often the downfall of some really great ideas.

Chapter Analysis

Chapter 1 - The Start!

We were assigned to read the first chapter of The Design in Everyday Things. The book was written by Donald Norman and was a very interesting read for such an old book. The author began telling the story by giving plain examples that we see in our everyday world. The things listed were everyday encounters we see in our lives but never really think about.

The most dominant example he gave on how technology is worked by others is a simple door. A glass door had the person behind it confused as there were no instructions or visible way to actually open the door. The way we interact with objects and the ease of being able to use it are highly dependent on a few key concepts the author mentioned. The conceptual model is how we think something should work. A affordance on the other hand is the actual properties and features of the object. In the case of the glass door, visibility is a key concept in that it has to convey the correct message to the user. Other important terms were feedback and mappings as well as an image. Feedback was the message sent to the user after operating the object. Mappings were an actual map and link between two objects. And a system image was how the object is shown.

In all, the chapter was a really interesting read and was important in letting me know that there are in fact simple concepts to keep in mind in getting an easy interaction between technology and a user.


Chapter 2 - The Psychology of Actions

This chapter was titled by the author as The Psychology of Everyday Actions. He began by talking about a situation where he had helped someone else open a drawer when she couldn't open it herself. She than began to blame herself falsely for not being able to do it herself. Donald Norman, the author, then went on to state that most people blame themselves for not being able to figure out something that they perceived to be easy. He countered that argument by stating that sometimes the product itself is usually at fault for not being able to convey itself properly and instead confuses the user. He talked about how humans think a certain way and try to find reason for the inability to perform.

The author then began to talk about society and humans themselves to try and explain why people had blamed themselves for a products poor design. He then talked about in length about seven stages of action. Perceive, Interpretation, Purpose, Intent, Action. He talked about how that is how it is a typical order people follow when something is performed. Another term I thought useful since it was on a quiz in class was Gulf of Evaluation. It's the gap between two actions that a user expects when he learns more about the device.

I thought this chapter was interesting as people do in fact find fault in themselves for their inability to surpass flaws of something else. They attribute that to themselves instead. I think that products should be better designed to help people, but there is also a limit to how much effort should be put into that. If too much is put into simplicity, it often sacrifices creativity and complexity some users desire.


Chapter 3 - Knowledge in Head and World

In this chapter, the author talked about different forms of knowledge and the processes usually used to learn about them. The title Knowledge in the Head and in the World seemed like a fitting title for it. To learn how to use a product, a user usually goes through a process of learning before he can fully understand and comprehend it. The author went on to say that there are different levels of 'knowing' information. The first is just memorization. Short term memory that usually fades away and is sometimes hard to make sense of. The next level is mapping or making sense of information based off of previous relationships or correlations. The final step of understanding information it that itself. Understanding or 'learning' information is key in truly understanding something and having it readily accessible. This stage of often harder to get through but is more of a long term process than the rest.

He also talked about constraints that help a user understand or fill in gaps when needed. If something had a physical constraint like he stated in the book, for example a LEGO set. Some pieces won't fit on other pieces and makes it easier to build when it only fits on a certain set.

I thought this chapter was interesting but not as interesting as the previous chapter. It talked about learning, but I think the more important questions were the psychology ones behind the problems. Thinking about how to learn about learning I think is slightly counter productive. I think it's best to let the mind do what it does best and instead think deeper about the problems to fix and understand them.


Chapter 4 - Knowing What to Do

This chapter was titled Knowing What To Do. In this chapter, Norman talked more about the constraints he did in the previous chapter. He went on further to talk about different kinds of constraints, logical cultural and physical constraints. Physical was talked in my previous summary and involved something physical that our mind filled in to make sense of. Cultural constraints are a bit harder to understand but involved using cultural  usuals or constraints to make sense of things. These things are learned and are a different form of constraint. The logical constraints he talked about was about using the previously learned experiences help make sense of what they were trying to do.

I liked this chapter because this was form of the learning experience he talked about in the previous chapter. It was a combination of that and actually went into a more in-depth look into understanding how people think.


Chapter 5 - To Err is Human

In this chapter, the author talked about error in more of a deeper way. This chapter seemed to ask the question why humans do what they do more than other chapters and I really took a liking to that. It was more of the psychological look that I like to view things in. I liked how the author suggested a few things in a way that designers should assume that users won't follow directions but instead do something wrong. Accounting for that would help with a few of his arguments.

I liked this chapter the most out of all the chapters and would indeed suggest the design recommendations he gave towards the end of the chapter. Assuming error is the most important concept I had gotten out of this chapter.


Chapter 6 - The Design Challenge

This chapter talked about more of the design process involved when creating a product and ways that can often be looked at in a deeper aspect to compensate for errors and better usability. The author had a lot of information that I found a bit hard to understand, but understood that he was trying to accomplish. I probably liked this chapter the least because I found myself re-reading parts just to understand it. The author seemed to jump around at times and concepts were a bit hard to follow at some points. It was an interesting chapter though as it seemed like he combined everything together into a process that can help with the design itself.

In the end, I jump back to my previous comments about the chapter being a bit harder to understand than the other chapters. A few of the examples I had a hard time relating to but I liked the design process he was getting towards at the end.


Chapter 7 - User Centered Drive

The thing that caught my attention most out of everything else it touched on all of the previous subjects he talked about as well as bringing in the design process to fix the issues at hand. He gave many examples of everyday things that I found myself relating to in order to understand the concepts. After coming form reading a chapter that was hard to understand, this chapter seemed more in focus and followed a path of explaining everything he had written about before (Users will almost always go through errors, designers problems, fixes, etc).

He talked about standardization which was on a quiz in class and explained that it helped overall problems. I agreed with this as Google and many other companies solve design problems with this very same standardization and process.

Items with a Good-Design

1.) The Galaxy S3 - Very Customizable




The Samsung Galaxy S3 pictured above I think is a very well designed phone. It has a lot of features a phone usually has and places the buttons in the right places that most other phones places theirs. Instead of putting the power, volume, and control buttons in other areas like a few other phones do, they follow what popular phones do and place them in separate and easy to access areas that users would know where to look. None of the buttons are close together that have totally different functions. The nicest thing I like about this design is that the software is open-source and highly customizable. Left handed users can set a specific setting to make it their own due to the accessabillity of the software and customizations. When you leave things open and include an API, it's easier to fix the things other people need.

2.) iPhone - Simple



Although I have an android and left the phone a while back, I applaud Apple for sticking with simplicity is usually best. Complicated things tend to well... complicate things and users often find themselves frustrated with the lack of ease with their devices. The iPhone is a concept that I believe really pushed the market further and convinced users to ditch their t9 phones and try a new technology. Even old users found themselves finding how to use an iPhone with ease. Although I don't like the lack of customization with the iPhone, a lot of users find the simplicity of this the biggest plus of all.

3.) Shoes - Simple and rarely difficult to use


Although there are some exceptions to shoes in general, shoes are usually the simplest of things to do. Learning to tie your shoe is probably the most complex a tennis shoe will give people. What I like about it best is that most people have become accustomed to not going through the process of doing and undoing your shoe. Most people wake up half awake, SLIP on their shoe, and go straight to where ever they need to go. It's simple, something most people don't think twice about, and is highly customizable. Nike for instance takes the cake in this aspect where it combines customization with ease of use.

4.) Musical Keyboard - Grouped and Ease to Use


I like the keyboard listed above the best because of it's design. It's made by M-Audio and is called an Axiom keyboard. I plugs into the computer and lets people control the music they make. In general, I think pianos are a really good way to learn how to play music. They have a note for the basic sounds and are not as difficult as guitars to use since each note is separate and you just press down to make a noise. Nothing complicated is required to learn a basic song. The hardest part would be to train your mind to play separately to play more difficult songs.

What I like about this design in particular though is that they group functions together. It has knobs, buttons, and even pads. It isn't jumbled all together and really helps people play perfect and not mis-hit notes while performing live. Because of all the options, it is highly customizable and usually never lets a user go desiring a feature that wasn't implemented.

5.) The Logitech Mouse - Fits to a User


The mouse is something I have found myself taking a strangely important liking to. It is often hard to find a mouse that fits my needs and I find myself returning mouses that make me uncomfortable. Because Logitech designs their mouses well, when one breaks and I have to use another cheap mouse, I find myself wishing my first one didn't break in the first place. They design their mouses to fit the user's hand instead of making a regular mouse round. They even place buttons in places the fingers would even rest and let the users decide what actions those buttons would perform. I find them highly customizable and comfortable to use, even hours on hours of usage. My hand never gets tired like it used to when computers had first come to the market.

Items with a Bad-Design

1.) Chopsticks - Can't easily pick up for most people



The above pictured chopsticks are an attempt a designer had in fixing what most people had issues with while eating. I'm still amazed how widely difficult it is for most people to try, while the other side of the earth uses with ease on a normal basis. Because a utensil is a utensil, documentation usually isn't provided. This is a perfect example in how users often get confused on the simplest issue. Most people fumble with their rice and can never get a good grasp when using chop sticks. With something as simple as eating, chopsticks make what should be viewed as a delight into something tiresome and difficult. Hard to use, Splinter-filled, and No documentation easily makes the chopsticks at my number one bad design object.

2.) The Door Lock - 50/50 Chance


The door lock is something I often found myself second guessing myself on. Most doors open by turning the lock towards the hinges, but other doors work by turning the lock towards the other way. When first entering a house or apartment, no one ever knows initially which way to unlock the door until they actually try it. Even while living at my place for many years, I have often found myself sometimes turning the key the wrong way to open the door, especially when other things are on my mind.

3.) Fan Switches - Also a 50/50 Chance



The fan is also another product that I believe can be better designed and standardized. Trying to figure out which chain is the light and which chain is the light is sometimes difficult, even after living years at a place that I have always lived at. Even the polarity switch on the motor is sometimes difficult to understand. Trying to figure out which direction the switch will make the fan turn is hard. You flip the switch, wait for the blades to slow down enough to actually see their direction, and realize you had it on the right setting in the first place. I find it funny how other people, especially at night, struggle with this as well.

4.) Water faucets - Sometimes Strange


The above water faucet is a faucet I have seen in person before. It starts at the Shut setting, but then has the next setting set at Scalding. I applaud the makers for actually letting the user know that it is a setting so hot you may burn yourself at, but I find it strange in general. In order to get a warm shower, you have to pass the super hot and potentially dangerous setting first (depending on the water heater), and then go to the setting you like. Having to risk burning yourself every time you shower may be something you want to re-think about.

5.) AC Thermostat - Varies depending on maker


The thermostat is something that I have found myself often wondering about. The unit at my house is very different than the unit at my apartment and I found myself setting the wrong setting when I first moved into my apartment. For some units, the temperature you set is the temperature you desire. For other units, it's the temperature you want the unit to turn the unit on at. Then you set another temperature at the temperature you want to stop at. On other units I have found that the heat setting is different than the cold setting. Other units have this combined together. The varied product really makes me think about how changing places is often difficult when you have to get re-aquainted with the unit again.