The Design of Everyday Things

1. I feel that in this chapter, Norman is expressing what he views are necessities in design. He understands that design should be focused on the user and consumer, not on who designs it. However, there is a fine line between being excessively simple, and not simple enough, both of which make it difficult for the user to interact with the product. The principles of design are addressed, such as visibility, accessible clues, usability, feedback, and mapping. All of these contribute to how the user navigates their way through the product and accomplishes whatever they desire with it. He also goes through the different psychologies of it, and that i words/pictures/etc are needed to convey how something should be used, the design has failed. Conceptual models describe how the object is to work, and is another aid at the user's disposal. The designers have a difficult job because all facets of production have a different desire. If each is not met, the design fails and does not reach a functional or successful market. The paradox of technology is explained, which states that although new technologies are designed to make life easier, life is made more difficult in the short run because one must figure out how to use it.

2. A few summers ago, I was going on a three week long trip to Europe. The trip took me to France, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland. In order to document my vacation, my parents invested in a new digital camera for the family...It was the newest Kodak, complete with a special zoom and a bunch of other state-of-the-art features that I didn't understand. There were five buttons down the side, two buttoms for zooming (in and out), and a cursor with four directions. I was unable to take full advantage of these features because the menus were seemingly impossible to navigate. They used terminology I did not understand, cued different images to appear on the screen that I did not know how to use, and made the camera far more intense than what was necessary. Visibility was great until you went into the menus, which I did not know how to navigate. There were not appropriate clues either to show which of the options I may have found most useful for the type of picture I was taking at the moment. Feedback was good, except on the camera, you did not always know what options were set when a certain picture was taken. For example, if you had chosen a nighttime setting, the device used a preconstructed flash, zoom, pixel, etc. package, making it difficult to reenact if you desired.

3. The iPod's simplistic design makes it relatively easy to get through even the most extensive of music libraries. Jobs made sure that there was a minimum amount of buttons to be used, with one for the menu, and the basic play/stop/back/forward buttons. The mapping is self explanatory, with each button meaning exactly what its function is. Feedback is automatic, because when you select a song, it plays, and when you choose to stop it, it visibly stops. There did not need to be clues, because it was understandable from the beginning.