Microblogs for The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 1

Summary
This chapter introduced the Paradox of Technology: the idea that, while improved technology can offer additional benefits to make life easier, it's also likely to make operation more complex and thus more frustrating. Numerous examples of products were provided to illustrate this, including the evolution of telephone systems, digital watches, and radios. Good design philosophies to minimize potential confusion include constructing good conceptual models, making things visible and providing good mapping and feedback.

Discussion
Dr. Norman makes many good points here that made me think very hard about every part of my day-to-day activities that seem routine and analyze their designs. When I read about how a sink has eleven basic parts, I immediately thought of faucet design. From experience, I have found that faucets should not only be hand-operable, but also elbow-operable; when washing hands or dishes, it may be desirable to use your elbow to twist the faucet. I find designs that do not facilitate this to be very subpar.

Chapter 2

Summary
People naturally form mental models of how things around them work and how to operate them. When something goes wrong with this, people feel the need to explain the problem, whether it be their fault or something else in the environment. A major problem with this is that people tend not to have enough information to correctly blame or explain the problem, sometimes due to misinterpretations between actions and perceived results. Examples relating to this problem include loading a film into a projector and the Three Mile Island nuclear incident. The process of making things happen, or achieving a goal is first broken down into execution and evaluation, or doing something and then checking to see if the execution was successful. Both of these are further broken down into the seven stages of action: forming the goal, forming the intention, specifying an action, executing the action, perceiving the state of the world, interpreting the state of the world and evaluating the outcome.

Discussion
This chapter was a lot like the first chapter in content, but touching more on the relationship between actions and results or outcomes. The seven stages of action indeed do not always need to be listed out and examined; only when problems with design and understanding occur do they need to be carefully considered.

Chapter 3

Summary
There is an important distinction between knowledge in the world versus knowledge in the head. Knowledge in the world can be thought of as tangible information, like a Post-It note about a future event, instruction labels, whereas knowledge in the head is information stored as memory. Tradeoffs between these two types boil down to: 1) world knowledge is more easily retrievable, 2) world knowledge doesn't need to be learned,  3) can be slower than knowledge in the head due to cognitive load in interpreting the information (this is where natural mappings and constraints are important), 4) world knowledge can be less aesthetically pleasing and tends to lead to clutter.

Discussion
I liked that this chapter took a look at the cognitive concepts of memory. A lot of the examples of this were pretty instructive, such as the penny test, which showed that most people retain just enough information to distinguish a penny from the other existing coins, but not enough to pick out the correct penny design out of many other penny designs.

Chapter 4: Knowing What To Do

Summary
This chapter continued discussing constraints in more detail by first having people attempt to put together a Lego police  motorcycle. He explored physical, semantic, cultural and logical constraints. Physical constraints are concerned with the physical and visible structure of objects that make their function, orientation and operation most obvious. For the motorcycle, this involved the direction of the windshield piece as well as the Lego design of cylinders fitting into holes. Semantic constraints define the meaning of things. For example, the windshield is meant to protect the rider, so it must be in front of the rider. Cultural constraints rely on cultural conventions. As with the motorcycle, this allowed people to know that the red light piece signifies "stop", so it belongs at the back, and yellow/white is generally used for headlights, so that goes at the front. Logical constraints simply rely on logic to give meaning to things. So if the red and yellow lights have been used, the final blue light should sit on top, if no cultural constraints have dictated the position of the blue light. Finally, the Dr. Norman explained how visible and aural feedback can greatly improve the design of things.

Discussion
I liked how thorough and effective the experiment with the Lego motorcycle was. I also particularly enjoyed his solution for arranging light switches in a horizontal manner that matches the layout of rooms, as well as his return to door designs.

Chapter 5: To Err is Human

Summary
In this chapter, Dr. Norman discusses the anatomy of errors, categorized as slips and mistakes. In relation to the seven stages of action outlined in Chapter 2, slips occur in execution of an action, whereas mistakes occur in formation of the overall goal itself. Norman further explored human memory and thought, including the Connectionist Approach, or "neural networks", where billions of brain cells are connected to nearby cells in a large overall stable model. He also demonstrates through examples that many accidents can result from series of minor breakdowns, each of which is easy to explain at the time and thus easy to be ignored. In addition, social pressure can drive errors or mistakes like this. Errors in design can be dealt with using a variety of forcing functions, including interlocks, lockins and lockouts.

Discussion
This was a rather long but no less interesting chapter. I thought Norman's spin on errors rather novel: that errors should not be considered mutual exclusive from desired behavior, that errors should be treated as part of the ongoing learning process between human and machine. Basically, errors will happen, so designers need to anticipate and protect against them, make them less costly, and make mistakes reversible. I also liked how this chapter was largely psychological. While I enjoy how design of things fits into HCI, I also really like the psychology behind it all.

Chapter 6: The Design Challenge

Summary
Natural or evolutionary design has always involved creating an initial product, then making improvements over it with every iteration, based on user feedback. But several things prevent this design, especially in recent years. Because of competition, the design process is sped up, so new models may be started before the old ones are even released; in addition, with many designers making similar products, each attempts to create their own that stand out from the others, which can result in making products worse than they could have been. Moreover, today aesthetics tend to take precedence over usability, as is the case especially in museums; designers don't consider typical users very well, since they become so familiar with their products while designing them and their clients are not always the end-users. Lastly, good design can also be hampered by "creeping featurism", the compulsion to continue adding features to a device, making it near unusable. Computer systems can suffer from these same problems, but since the technology is still young, things can be done more easily, like making the computer a chameleon.

Discussion
This chapter seems to elaborate on many ideas from previous chapters. I really liked the keyboard and faucet examples, and the "disappearing computer" concept of course showed up in one of the HCI Remixed chapters and has been an idea I've been familiar with before I started graduate school.


Chapter 7: User-Centered Design


Summary
Dr. Norman opens this chapter explaining the three conceptual or mental models for any object or device: the design model, user's model and the system image. The design model is the device's conceptualization by the designer. The user's model is how the user interprets the operation of the device. These should both be similar. The system image is the device's physical appearance, its operation, the way it responds and the manuals and instructions that accompany it. So the system image must reflect the correct conceptual model as seen by both designer and user. Technological approaches to simplifying tasks center around mental aids and automation. For the remainder of the chapter and book, Norman outlines his main points from previous chapters, including constraints and designing for error, and also explores standardization as a last resort.

Discussion
I couldn't tell this was the last chapter until the very last page, so it felt like the book ended somewhat abruptly. Despite this, it concludes the book pretty well. I liked that it briefly described some other concepts not mentioned in previous chapters like standardization and deliberately aiming for bad design as a security measure.