Microblogs for "The Design of Everyday Things"

Reference Information:
                 Title: The Design of Everyday Things
                 Author:  Donald Norman
                 Publisher: 2002, New York: Basic Books (Perseus)


Chapter 1: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

Summary: 
 How an object is designed matters a lot to the user. The object can either have a poor design or be well designed. The difference between the two is that a well design has clues to help people understand how to use it. This works because the human mind is tailored to make sense of the world, it looks for clues.

There are psychological aspects in designs that hinder designs. Visibility is a problem when there is a lack of clues so it is confusing to figure out.

The fundamental principles of designing for people are to have a good conceptual model and to make things visible. If theses principles are followed then the object is not difficult to figure out, there should be no trial and error to have success.

Mapping and feedback cause problems in designs. When mapping controls to their movements is not thought out things become very confusing. Feedback is also important because it lets the user know if what they are doing is right or not. Technology now is so confusing because we have more features with less feedback.

Discussion:
A few of his examples actually made me laugh because I've experienced the frustration myself. I do agree that the way things are designed needs to change because more times than not I am confused on how to work things. Things should be made more with the user in mind especially when there are a ton of features involved.
Everyday things are sometimes more confusing than they should be. I liked when he said there should be no trial and error to figure it out, you should just be able to pick up clues on the design.

Chapter 2: Psychology of Everyday Actions
This chapter talks about the different ways people blame themselves for things that aren't entirely their faults. It talks about the nature of human thought and tries to explain the bridge between people and technology and it's design.


Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because most of the author's examples we could all relate too. This helped shed light on why design is so important because it seems normal in our culture to blame ourselves.

Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World

Summary:
This chapter was about human knowledge in memory. The author talks about different cases of knowledge, one being in the world and the other in the head.  He mainly talks about different issues with human memory.

Discussion:
I like at the end how he says knowledge in the world is always there, waiting to be used and knowlege in the head is ephemeral, here now, gone later. Overall this was an interesting read but compared to the last chapters I had problems getting into the reading.
 
Chapter 4: Knowing What To Do

Summary:
Norman talks about the constraints in design. His example is a 13 piece lego motorcycle. The constraints on doors is discussed next along with constraints of switches. He talked about how things should be made more visible or have an immediate effect after pressing something. 

Discussion:
I liked this chapter because it is very important when thinking about design. I like the examples he gives because while making me laugh they make me evaluate some of the things I use everyday and notice the same flaws and how they could be improved.