Book Report: the Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

Introduction

An individual’s everyday operations and interactions are crucial for survival. Although most books do not focus on everyday things, the book, The Design of Everyday Things – a revised and expanded edition written by Don Norman- does. The book focuses on objects and processes that people interact with their day to day lives and offers recommendations for bettering their situations. The book focuses on principles that seek to explain how individuals manage to communicate with unusual natural or artificial objects, which might or not be similar to those aware to them. The book aims at making readers into great observers of the poor design that result in various modern life issues and of the thoughtful ways through which designers have eased and smoothened lives. It lays out fundamental principles for eliminating design problems thus improving everyday operations. The book gives back control to individuals over the commodities they interact with by enlightening them on how to select the understandable and usable ones.

The book contains seven chapters with chapter one highlighting about the manifestation of experiences relative to everyday things. Chapter two determines the conscious and unconscious phenomena around daily actions. Chapter three expounds on the differences and relationship between the knowledge in the world and the head relative to design. Chapter four suggests ways of dealing with the disconcertment due to encounters with unfamiliar situations and objects. Chapter five establishes the reasons behind errors and their connection to bad design. Chapter six posits ways of solving design issues and dealing with design challenges. Chapter seven ascertains how design interacts with the business world including effects of competition, technological advancements and design’s moral obligations.

Chapter one focuses on the importance of affordances and signifiers in designing and whose characteristics are in line with the expected qualities of a quality design including understanding and discoverability. It highlights that for effectiveness, affordances and anti-affordances should be visible. For example, a bed affords support and, hence affords lying. Nonetheless, a single being can carry a particular bed; thus the bed affords lifting. As such, if weak individuals cannot move a bed, then it has no affordance to them hence the object does not afford lifting by the agent. The chapter also enlightens on signifiers as indicators that convey the place an action should occur thus dictating expected behavior by an individual. For instance, using the absence of people waiting at a bus station to establish whether one has missed the bus. The book indicates that signifiers are signaling elements of affordances, which help individuals figure out possible actions without the need for instructions. For instance, a handle on a door is both signifier and perceived affordance. Additionally, the book poses signifiers to comprise internal models on the meanings behind and operations within the technological space. Thus, this chapter focuses on the relationship between individuals and technology thus ensuring that products are usable and fulfill the desired wants.

Chapter two emphasizes the effort necessitated to interpret an object and determine how well the seven-stage action meets its expectations. The process facilitates understanding human action and guides design. For instance, the lack of light makes reading difficult, which triggers turning on of light is triggered the subgoal of getting lighter to achieve the primary purpose – reading. A second instance is where an individual buys a book for the focal need of a finishing an assignment. The chapter highlights that reflective, behavioral and visceral levels of processing relate to determining a person’s needs and tastes of a commodit. For instance, when an individual has positive experiences with an object, the visceral response is an instant positive perception, the reflective answer is an extensive evaluation of the occurrence while the behavioral intervention is recommending the product.

Chapter three highlights that precise behavior can arise from imprecise knowledge, which enables individuals to survive in novel and confusing situations where they are unaware know nothing of how they should react. For example, individuals lacking knowledge about familiar currency notes, although they can distinguish one currency value from another.

Another instance is the signal lights on industrial equipment, which indicate knowledge in the world. Individuals avoid confusion though discrimination by distinguishing features. Mapping is an example of the power behind combining the knowledge of the head and the world as it is a relationship between the components of two sets of objects. For instance, waving a hand in front of a towel dispenser but getting no towel thus causing one to wonder whether the machine is out of products or broken. However, mapping varies with culture such as different cultures represent time lines vertically while others use parallel timelines. Therefore, this chapter emphasizes how knowledge in the head combines with that in the world and on how individuals acquire and apply knowledge.

Chapter four outlines that constraints are clues that limit a set of possible behavior or actions hence allowing individuals to choose the appropriate deed in a novel situation. For instance, the design of a key; the smooth and the jagged sides, limits its insertion in a lock. Elements such as signifiers, affordances, and constraints simplify encounters with natural or artificial objects. For instance, a socket affords connecting, the hollow and design in a signifier, the fixed holed for a charger is a constraint. Failure to deploy the simplifiers could result into issues. For instance, not knowing how to operate a cabinet door can prove frustrating as it can be lifted, pulled, pushed, or slid. Culture, through convections, provide knowledge as to how individuals should behave. For instance, it is a worldwide convention that screw threads tighten upon clockwise turning, and loosen with counterclockwise. Thus, this chapter enlightens on how designers can offer critical information that would allow individuals to be aware of what to do, especially when encountering unfamiliar situations or devices.

Chapter five depicts that errors occur due to interruptions, people’s attitudes towards oversights and the nature of procedures and tasks that require unnatural behaviors from individuals. For instance, staying alert for hours while multitasking can result in a flaw in the functions that one handles. Root cause analysis should be used to establish an error’s underlying cause rather than the proximate cause as most accidents have multiple sources. For instance, if a machine stops working, the origin could be a faulty cable, a broken machine part, or due to overloading among others. The “Five Whys” approach can be used to analyze the root cause. An error can be a slip; where an individual inappropriately does a required action for an original goal or a mistake; where the goal itself is unjustified. For instance, a slip can be forgetting to turn off a burner after cooking while a mistake can be failing to complete a troubleshooting session due to distraction. Referencing to the seven-stage action process can facilitate the comprehension of errors. Thus, this chapter illuminates on how to determine the chances of and mitigating the impacts of errors.

Chapter six highlights on design thinking while focusing on design models and processes, design challenges and the effect of technological advancements on people. It indicates that Human-centered design (HCD) ensures the meeting of individuals’ needs in that that the resulting commodity can be used and comprehended. For instance, a device should be cost-effective, reliable, effective, and instill pride of ownership. In the Double-Diamond Model of Design, a planner questions the problem, expands the problem’s scope, diverges to examine underlying fundamental issues, and converges upon a problem statement. Designing faces various challenges including the multiple conflicting requirements of a product. For instance, some individual’s prefer cabinet doors that slid and are light while others prefer those that can be pulled and are heavy. Complexity in design is necessary and is related to knowledge. For example, someone else’s cabinet looks confusing and complicated, but one’s cabinet does not. As such, the confusion is that knowledge since one is not conversant with the other person’s cabinet. Overall, this chapter highlights the sources of conflicting requirements and how they can be solved, which includes compromises by all involved stakeholders.

Chapter seven focuses on other factors that affect product development rather than the human-centered design concerns. It highlights on the effect of competitive forces in driving the introduction of a product’s extra features. For instance, in a bid to remain competitive a company might decide to add additional futures in its product to outdo that of its rival in the market. New technologies also drive the development of new products. For instance, the growth of portable smartphones resulted in the demise of keyboard telephones hence changing the manner of communicating. Incremental innovation involves making improvements on existing products while radical innovation consists of creating a product from a new idea due to possible new capabilities. For example, vehicles initially operated under steam and later evolved to commercial automobiles, which is ac incremental innovation. The chapter concludes by indicating that as technologies change, people also change. For instance, so far the technological advancements in hearing-aid devices have improved the abilities of deaf people. Thus, this chapter determines the effect of technological advancements and competitiveness in design. Conclusion

The principles advocated in the book are becoming more critical with the accelerating pace in technological change. Moreover, compared to the original copy, this edition contains new ideas and examples with regards to product design, which makes it more essential. The work-piece supports the possibility of usable design by exploiting natural connections that couple control and functioning and intelligently using constraints. Additionally, the book postulates design as a crucial factor for regaining a competitive advantage in influencing the behavior of consumers. Thus, the book explains the reasons as to why some commodities satisfy a particular consumer’s needs while others only exasperate.