The Design Of Everday Things (2)

1. Select a passage and explain why you thought it was interesting.
"Each detail was added by some person, a designer, carefully thinking through the uses of the device, the ways that people abuse things, the kinds of errors that can get made, and the functions that people wish to have performed. Then why is it that so many good design ideas don't find their way into products in the marketplace? Or something good shows up for a short time, only to fall into oblivion?"
This concept is covered throughout the chapter that we read. Designers obviously think through and test out the product they are going to release. Norman then goes on to say that it takes five or six attempts to get the product right. Still the question remains with visibility, affordance, and mapping in the designer's mind, why are difficult designs still made? The author also wrote earlier in the chapter that it is necessary for the designer to understand the psychology of people when designing, which I think is also very important. People are comfortable when they know that their actions actually carry out how they thought they would when they created a mental image of them using the object.


2. Why do you think Norman's book (1988) still influences designers today?
This book is still influential to designers today because it explicitly explains what makes a design successful or unsuccessful. Obviously today, with the technology boom, there is a lot of competition to make the newest and coolest product. Designers today must still evaluate their product before releasing it, and from Norman's book can learn the qualities of a sound design.


3. What factors would you include on a checklist for evaluating the design of a product?
The visibility(or lack of), mapping, affordance, and constraints. It should be clear to the user how to operate the product. If there are instructions, they should be pictures with few words.
The mapping should be natural. There should be an equal amount of functions as controls. There can be a few more controls than functions but too many functions is confusing.