The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (original 1988; edition 2013)

The main question in my mind after listening to this audiobook is easily enough answered: How old IS this book, anyhow? In the introduction the author talks about how the book isn't dated. Well, it was originally published in 1988. One of the most talked-about pieces of technology discussed is the videocassette recorder. The VCR. The computers being discussed are about a step beyond the ones that could add three numbers together using a bank of systems that would fill a room. Some of the book is relevant no matter what, as the prologue or forward or introduction or whatever it was points out. But not all of it is.

Much of the point of this book is: "When people have trouble with something, it's not their fault. It's the fault of the design." And I don't buy it. Maybe it's because I have less faith in humanity than the author does, but – well, I've seen it (including, to be honest, in myself). I did not like the book [book:Wizard's First Rule], but something I love and always use is the explication of Wizard's First Rule: "People Are Idiots". Yes, it should be obvious whether a door needs to be pushed or pulled to get the thing open – but in most if not all of the cases I've seen it's not actively hidden. In my experience, people just don't read.

Example: I can't tell you how many emails I've sent, only to have to reiterate some or all of it almost immediately. I used to run an international online-based Secret Santa, and every year after the emails went out I braced myself for the slew of responses asking questions that were answered in the initial email. Because people don't read.

I've learned that when I ask two questions or provide two pieces of information in an email, the second one is going to go completely unnoticed. More than two? Forget it. Now, I've long ago learned that my tendency to wordiness won't fly in business emails – I've learned to pare it down. Still, people don't read.

Recent example: in reply to a question from one of my bosses, I wrote "I’ve attached [three pieces of documentation for a delivery]; it looks like there was no delivery ticket created." That was the first line of my email. One of them replied with "Do we have delivery ticket?" I sat and stared at it for a couple of minutes, and then just wrote back "There was no delivery ticket, as far as I can see". I just don't understand.

Example: I can't tell you how many people go up to the fax machine in the office and ask whether paperwork has to be face-up or face-down. (The owner of the company asks every time.) (Every. Time.) How do you work in offices as long as these people have without learning that there is a little graphic on the machine to answer just that important question. (I also can't tell you how many blank faxes I've received over the years, because people a) didn't read and b) didn't ask, and just faxed away. Upside down.) The design is just fine: the question is answered. I'm not sure how else it could be addressed; bright colors or flashing lights? Or big letters? Nah. It's fine. People are idiots.

So your car radio is difficult to use while driving? Here's a thought: Don't use it while driving. You might want to watch the road instead.

The author talks about an expensive hoity toity Italian washing machine – it was so badly designed that the owners were afraid to touch it. "Why did they buy it?" the author asks. Well, because it's an expensive hoity toity Italian machine – and they're stupid. They wanted conspicuous consumption, or got snowed by a salesman who saw their weakness. Plus they probably hire someone to do their laundry anyway, or at any rate seem to be able to afford to.

And the author complains about the problems inherent in lowering a projection screen in a lecture hall – but it sounds like the hall long predates slide projectors. The projector had to be installed in the place long after the fact, and in such a way (I would assume) so as not to do any mischief to the structure or artistry of the room. So – yeah, it's not perfect. It doesn't exist in perfect conditions. Work with it. Or hold your lectures somewhere else.

And the author complains about senseless instructions for those VCR's, and all I could think was, well, they're often translated badly from Japanese.

The author talks about a design feature – or not – in an Audi which allowed the sunroof to be closed without the ignition key in place, but only if an odd sequence of steps were taken. Why, he asks, was it such a peculiar combination of steps? Well, a) because it was accidental, and/or b) because a non-peculiar combination might result in an accidental opening of the sunroof when you really didn't want it open. (I say "you" because I'll never so much as sit in an Audi.)

Now, I do agree with the basic premise of the book. Of course an object should be designed so that it's not difficult to use. But … well, see, over the sink in my apartment there are three switches. When I had a tour of the place I was told that the one on the left controlled the light, the one in the middle controlled the garbage disposal, and the last one was for the dishwasher. When I moved in a little while later it took about five minutes' trial and error. Now I don't have to think about it. Figure it out yourself: you'll probably remember it longer. "Control/alt/delete" isn't an intuitive command for the computer – but the reason for that is pretty sensible: it's not something that can be done using one or two close-set keys … because it's not something you want to do accidentally. And once it's learned, it's easy enough to remember.

Okay, go back to the whole door thing. The author admits that he has problems with doors. And I get it – if there's no label on a door it can be hard to know whether you're supposed to push or pull or whatever. But – at least nowadays – I think every door I see in a public venue has a little sign. And … I'm sorry, I can't muster up a whole lot of sympathy for the person who pulls on a door that says "push", or vice versa – including me. Honestly, I have little patience with anyone who doesn't read the damn directions.

I also don't have a lot of patience for someone who goes out and buys a massively expensive Italian washing machine without making sure they understand how to use it. Yes, that can be blamed on the design; it can also be blamed on the salesman seeing dollar signs, and on the fact that any instruction manual is probably translated from the Italian – and on a level of carelessness and lack of preparedness by the buyer. I'm sorry – if you don't put in a certain level of research into a big purchase, you deserve what you end up with.

If I need, for example, to make a spreadsheet do something I don't know how to do, I don't write a letter to MicroSoft complaining about the poor design of Excel. I figure it out, or I look it up. I work with people who don't bother to try to solve any problem for themselves. If they don't know how to do something, they sit in their seats and yell like children for help – literally. It sounds like the author is in favor of this attitude – everything should be obvious, and if it's not you're entitled to squawk. It's learned helplessness.

My feeling on this is basically that if I can figure it out, or look it up, anyone can do it – and damn well should.

And read my damned email, jackass.

So, no – technology of any sort should not be intentionally or incidentally obscure. But also, and equally, people should be able to learn and follow the instructions that are present and hone their deductive instincts. It's an ability that will only ever make life easier. ( )

Lectura imprescindible si te interesan temas como el diseño centrado en el usuario, usabilidad, etc.

La primera vez que lo leí fue durante la carrera de Psicología, cuando aún era "La Psicología de los objetos cotidianos". Pero esta reseña hace referencia a la edición electrónica del 2002: The Design of Everyday Things.

Algunos de los ejemplos, aunque el libro se ha actualizado un poco, siguen siendo anticuados (estamos hablando de cosas que hace 12 años eran habituales y que han quedado desfasadas). Pero aún así es útil para comprobar cómo las cosas más habituales y cotidianas de nuestro entorno están "mal" diseñadas y nos crean tantas frustraciones haciéndonos sentir torpes.

Tiene un interesante apartado de lecturas recomendadas.

Donald A. Norman es un must en estos temas. ( )

A little too dated, unfortunately. Lots of his complaints have been addressed - but more issues continually arise. An updated and better written text should be required reading for every architect & designer. I found plenty of tidbits for a general interest reader. ( )

This book has several very important ideas:

* Even if you aren't professional designer, you still use design everywhere in your life, including how you design your house, your resume, a report, some code, etc.

* Design is all about focusing on people's needs and abilities. You may think you know what those are by the virtue of being a human, but you don't, as most human actions are unconscious. Therefore, to be a good designer, you need to learn some psychology.

* Good design is all about finding the root cause (not just the stated problem) and using an iterative process (there are no failures, just experiments).

* Many of the things we attribute to human error are actually caused by poor design. This is because humans make mistakes _all the time_ and a good design _must_ take this into account.

For these alone, it's worth reading. That said, the book feels a little unfocused and scatter brained. It frequently goes off on tangents, most of which are interesting, but not always relevant to the main points. The book is also repetitive, repeating the same message about bad design, constraints, and culture over and over again.


Some good quotes:

Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.

We are all designers in the sense that all of us deliberately design our lives, our rooms, and the way we do things. We can also design workarounds, ways of overcoming the flaws of existing devices.

Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding. Discoverability: Is it possible to even figure out what actions are possible and where and how to perform them? Understanding: What does it all mean? How is the product supposed to be used? What do all the different controls and settings mean?

All artificial things are designed. Whether it is the layout of furniture in a room, the paths through a garden or forest, or the intricacies of an electronic device, some person or group of people had to decide upon the layout, operation, and mechanisms. Not all designed things involve physical structures. Services, lectures, rules and procedures, and the organizational structures of businesses and governments do not have physical mechanisms, but their rules of operation have to be designed, sometimes informally, sometimes precisely recorded and specified.

Human-centered design is a design philosophy. It means starting with a good understanding of people and the needs that the design is intended to meet. This understanding comes about primarily through observation, for people themselves are often unaware of their true needs, even unaware of the difficulties they are encountering. Getting the specification of the thing to be defined is one of the most difficult parts of the design, so much so that the HCD principle is to avoid specifying the problem as long as possible but instead to iterate upon repeated approximations. This is done through rapid tests of ideas, and after each test modifying the approach and the problem definition. The results can be products that truly meet the needs of people.

A conceptual model is an explanation, usually highly simplified, of how something works. It doesn’t have to be complete or even accurate as long as it is useful.

When people use something, they face two gulfs: the Gulf of Execution, where they try to figure out how it operates, and the Gulf of Evaluation, where they try to figure out what happened [...] The role of the designer is to help people bridge the two gulfs.

We bridge the Gulf of Execution through the use of signifiers, constraints, mappings, and a conceptual model. We bridge the Gulf of Evaluation through the use of feedback and a conceptual model.

Most of us start by believing we already understand both human behavior and the human mind. After all, we are all human: we have all lived with ourselves all of our lives, and we like to think we understand ourselves. But the truth is, we don’t. Most of human behavior is a result of subconscious processes. We are unaware of them.

When we speak, we often do not know what we are about to say until our conscious mind (the reflective part of the mind) hears ourselves uttering the words.

When we perform a well-learned action, all we have to do is think of the goal and the behavioral level handles all the details: the conscious mind has little or no awareness beyond creating the desire to act.

We need to remove the word failure from our vocabulary, replacing it instead with learning experience. To fail is to learn: we learn more from our failures than from our successes. With success, sure, we are pleased, but we often have no idea why we succeeded. With failure, it is often possible to figure out why, to ensure that it will never happen again.
Scientists know this. Scientists do experiments to learn how the world works. Sometimes their experiments work as expected, but often they don’t. Are these failures? No, they are learning experiences. Many of the most important scientific discoveries have come from these so-called failures.

Eliminate all error messages from electronic or computer systems. Instead, provide help and guidance.

Humans err continually; it is an intrinsic part of our nature. System design should take this into account.

Eliminate the term human error. Instead, talk about communication and interaction: what we call an error is usually bad communication or interaction. When people collaborate with one another, the word error is never used to characterize another person’s utterance. That’s because each person is trying to understand and respond to the other, and when something is not understood or seems inappropriate, it is questioned, clarified, and the collaboration continues. Why can’t the interaction between a person and a machine be thought of as collaboration?

Our strengths are in our flexibility and creativity, in coming up with solutions to novel problems. We are creative and imaginative, not mechanical and precise. Machines require precision and accuracy; people don’t. And we are particularly bad at providing precise and accurate inputs. So why are we always required to do so? Why do we put the requirements of machines above those of people?

Seven fundamental principles of design:
1. Discoverability. It is possible to determine what actions are possible and the current state of the device.
2. Feedback.There is full and continuous information about the results of actions and the current state of the product or service. After an action has been executed, it is easy to determine the new state.
3. Conceptual model. The design projects all the information needed to create a good conceptual model of the system, leading to understanding and a feeling of control. The conceptual model enhances both discoverability and evaluation of results.
4. Affordances. The proper affordances exist to make the desired actions possible.
5. Signifiers.Effective use of signifiers ensures discoverability and that the feedback is well communicated and intelligible.
6. Mappings. The relationship between controls and their actions follows the principles of good mapping, enhanced as much as possible through spatial layout and temporal contiguity.
7. Constraints. Providing physical, logical, semantic, and cultural constraints guides actions and eases interpretation.

Never criticize unless you have a better alternative.

When people err, change the system so that type of error will be reduced or eliminated. When complete elimination is not possible, redesign to reduce the impact.

When many people all have the same problem, shouldn’t another cause be found? If the system lets you make the error, it is badly designed. And if the system induces you to make the error, then it is really badly designed. When I turn on the wrong stove burner, it is not due to my lack of knowledge: it is due to poor mapping between controls and burners. Teaching me the relationship will not stop the error from recurring: redesigning the stove will.

Why do people err? Because the designs focus upon the requirements of the system and the machines, and not upon the requirements of people. Most machines require precise commands and guidance, forcing people to enter numerical information perfectly. But people aren’t very good at great precision. We frequently make errors when asked to type or write sequences of numbers or letters. This is well known: so why are machines still being designed that require such great precision, where pressing the wrong key can lead to horrendous results?

In many industries, the rules are written more with a goal toward legal compliance than with an understanding of the work requirements. As a result, if workers followed the rules, they couldn’t get their jobs done.

Good designers never start by trying to solve the problem given to them: they start by trying to understand what the real issues are.

Don Norman's Law of Product Development: The day a product development process starts, it is behind schedule and above budget.

Good designers are quick learners, for today they might be asked to design a camera; tomorrow, to design a transportation system or a company’s organizational structure. How can one person work across so many different domains? Because the fundamental principles of designing for people are the same across all domains. People are the same, and so the design principles are the same.

Every modern innovation, especially the ones that significantly change lives, takes multiple decades to move from concept to company success A rule of thumb is twenty years from first demonstrations in research laboratories to commercial product, and then a decade or two from first commercial release to widespread adoption. Except that actually, most innovations fail completely and never reach the public. ( )

The Design of Everyday Things is an excellent work intended for anyone seeking an introduction to the fundamental principles of design. The author uses human psychology as a basis for trying to understand the everyday problems that we face and uses it to develop the notions of good and bad design practices. A particular strength of this book are the examples provided throughout to illustrate the concepts - I found them highly effective in helping me to understand the problems being discussed.

There are too many useful ideas in this work to list them all here. A concept that I found particularly valuable is that we as a society should focus less on human error and more on bad design when interpreting everyday mistakes that people commit when dealing with technology. I also particularly liked the idea of continuously refining the definition of a problem to arrive at the “true” root problem before proceeding with problem solving when designing.

So why only 4 stars? I found the structure of the book somewhat ad-hoc (although the breadth of the material covered might explain this). Furthermore several sections such as the classification of errors into slips and mistakes went too deep into theory for my liking and could not fully hold my attention.

Overall a highly recommended read. ( )