Blog posts

1. In his post, Brandon does a great job of using what we've learned in class to question the devices around him. He mentions the poor mapping on both his remote control and microwave, something that Norman tells us is the hallmark of a bad design. Brandon also talks about the identically sized butons on his remote control, a poor use of shapes by the designer. It's incredibly useful to keep design principles in mind, so that you can recognize good and bad design.

2. I can relate to Alex' post. I've definately picked up products (controllers, etc.) that just immediately feel right. Ergonomics have such a strong influence on our outlook on a particular product. If a device eels comfortable and right, we'll be more willing and eager to learn how to operate it.

3. Robert's post brings up something that has been on my mind throughout this class. Before taking design intelligence, any time I ran into a product that I couldn't figure out, I simply worked harder to learn how to work it. Never would I consider that my problems were due to poor design, rather, I blamed my own incompetence. After all, I thought, it's a mass produced device designed by professionals; how could it be wrong? But throughout this class I've come to realize that bad design exists in a number of products, and that it's my responsiblity to discourage it, not cope with it.

Keep it simple stupid

Simplicity is the essence of good design. Often when I'm shopping for something, I'm most impressed by the product which displays a ridiculous amount of features in a chaotic layout. Call me crazy, but the more buttons (unecessary or not) I see, the more useful I initially imagine the product will be. I recognize how irrational this reaction to flashy products is, yet my mind is somehow tainted; I need a constant reminder of how well-designed products actually look: simple and approachable. My initial reaction to products couldn't be worse, but as long as I keep in mind what is most important - simplicity and usability- I'm able to find good design amidst the glitz and glamour.

Kate's Blogpost

1. I was drawn to Kate's article because it is quite relevant to one of the topics brought up in The Design of Everyday Things: award winning products. I was very interested to see whether or not these award winning products were undeserving of their awards, as Norman seems to tell us in his book.
2. I was very interested to see that Norman is right to some extent. Although many of these award winning products are quite pleasing to the eye and are undoubtedly revolutionary, they appear somewhat intimidating to the user. They may have won design awards, but I'm not so sure they would earn usability awards. With that said, I was encouraged by the prevalence of eco-design products. If designers continue to push the envelope on eco-design, many of our future environmental problems could be solved.
3. This article does a great job of reminding us of Norman's point about the focus of design awards. If you can resist the urge to be mesmorized by the flashy appearance of these award winning designs, you can recognize the problem of usability in many of the products shown.

Kate's Blog: http://iluvhockey21.blogspot.com/

Kelsey's blogpost

1. Kelsey's blog post attracted me to the article because of her engaging commentary. Her final line, "Not all design needs to be planned precisely," really made me curious about the article.
2. I found the article to be a nice change of pace. Most of what we've been discussing in class has been what makes products good. But we haven't really talked about what this article mentions, which is how products often arise. Breakthroughs in design, the article says, are often due to 'cross pollination,' or the integration of many ideas. So as Kelsey mentions, good design isn't always due to precise planning, but most-often results from the melding of existing ideas.
3. I would say that the article Kelsey chose kind of strays from what we've been talking about in class. But it offers a new angle on how good design is achieved.

Kelsey's blog: http://kelsey-di.blogspot.com/

Interesting Design Article

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/60/chalktalk.html (link problems..)

-Keith Hammonds brings up the one of the most important issues of design: the conflict between the engineer's goal and the designer's goal. Engineers tend to believe form follows function, some even neglect form altogether. Designers, however, are less concerned with functionality and more concerned with the usabilty and aesthetic appeal of a product. Their interests couldn't be more different, yet engineers and designers must reach an agreement between form and function in order to create a successful product.

Good Point

"Here we are with all this power and flexibility, and we can't get past AUTOMATIC. Why? It's tempting to just write it off as a usability flaw. But that's not the case with my camera--the Nikon D200 is dead easy to adjust. For most of us, the problem was NOT that we couldn't learn how to use anything but automatic "P" mode. The problem was that we didn't know why or when to use anything else."

-This is a very good point. We're all capable of using our products, and we're also eager to figure out all of its features, but we simply don't know the appropriate times to use certain features. It's a problem of understanding, not usability.

Good design

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IPod_classic_cropped.png -It's a beautiful thing... The iPod, to me, is one of the most brilliantly designed devices in recent memory. Everything about the iPod is just generally appealing; it feels good in my hand, it has a sleek look, it operates with ease, and it organizes and plays my favorite music. It strikes a perfect balance between aesthetics and functionality. But how does it manage this? The answer lies in its button layout. There are really only five buttons on the iPod, all of which are located either in or around a circle which allows the user to scroll through songs. The inexperienced user is almost immediately able to identify the purpose of each button simply through cultural constraints and knowledge in the head. The widely known symbols for play, pause, next, and previous make up three of the buttons, and the remaining buttons are menu and select. Although 'select' isn't labeled, as 'menu' conveniently is, the user is quickly able to realize the button's intended purpose. Once the buttons are understood and operation is underway, the iPod's natural mapping is unparalleled. The scroll circle is used for scrolling up and down the song list quickly, the select button is quite obviously used to select (as well as narrow down the menu), and the menu button is used to backtrack in the menu. The screen allows for proper visual feedback for where you are in the menu, and the music lets you know when you've selected the right song. That's pretty much it; a simple yet beautiful design which serves its purpose perfectly.

Some doors scare me

Have you ever encountered this door: http://www.baddesigns.com/3doors.html? Well if you have, you can understand my frustration. The middle door takes some courage to try to open thanks to a very important design flaw: the bar which extends across the width of the door. While cultural norms do allow us to assume that this bar means push, there are no visual clues telling us which side to push. How does the door open out? - A question, if answered incorrectly, which can result in a full on collision with the door. My biggest problem with the door is that the problem is so easily solvable. Simply place a flat bar on the side of the door that is supposed to be pushed in order to signal the user. I have to think that the designer was trying to create a sleek looking door, and in doing so ignored its true purpose. Unfortunately he/she obviously leaned too far toward aesthetics, and not enough toward functionality. But with one or two minor alterations, a balance could easily be struck.

Utter dissapointment...

I can't stress enough the importance of testing. When Ezra and I created our makeshift egg dropper, we were fairly confident. We constructed the device out of what we could find in the dorm (a nalgene, some paper towels, a plastic bag, and some coat hangers) and came up with an unattractive, yet promising egg dropper. We walked over to Ezra's window, held the egg dropper out in all its glory and dropped it down one story. What ensued was a somewhat awkward, but seemingly reasonable descent for the dropper. But we were only given one egg for the whole project, so obviously we hadn't used it in the test. Since we had no egg in our test, we simply had to judge that the egg would probably survive. So we sent the egg and the dropper to class, confident that we were in good shape.
When the moment finally came to throw the dropper out the building, only to fall to the concrete three stories below, I just kind of threw and prayed. The loud thud that reached me seconds later let me know that either God didn't hear me, or we had made a pretty crappy egg dropper. Regardless, I learned that proper testing is necessary in order to be certain that your design will work. In testing our device, we lacked a crucial member of the egg dropper test: an actual egg. If we'd had multiple eggs to use in testing, we could have modified our device and possibly prevented the embarrassing drop.

Favorite passage

"Just where do we put the blame for failure? The answer is not clear. The psychology of blame (or, to be more accurate, of attribution) is complex and not fully understood. In part, there seems to have to be some perceived causal relationship between the thing being blamed and the result. The word percieved is critical: the causal relationship does not have to exist; the person simply has to think it is there. Sometimes we attribute the cause to things that had nothing to do with the action. And sometimes we ignore the real culprit." (p. 40)

-I find that the message in this passage rings quite true for most people. We often create flawed mental models in our head of what we percieve to be correct explanations because the designer has failed to convey the correct mental model.

LeBlanc, Chris. "Favorite passage." Online posting.
27 Sept. 2007. <http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3537894714567816263&postID=616026861459107738>