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.
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