THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS
By Donald A. Norman
New York: Currency-Doubleday
1988, 1989
Table of Contents
- The Psychopathology of Everyday Things
- The Psychology of Everyday Actions
- Knowledge in the Head and in the World
- Knowing What to Do
- To Err Is Human
- The Design Challenge
- User--Centered Design
The Themes in this Book Apply to the Design of Web Pages and
Computer Programs
NORMAN'S MODEL
- The Psychopathology of Everyday
Things
- You would need an Engineering Degree to Fiqure This Out
- The Frustrations of Everyday Life
- The Psychology of Everyday Things
- Affordances
- Twenty Thousand Everyday Things
- Conceptual Models
- Principles of Design for Understandability and Usability:
PROVIDE A GOOD CONCEPTUAL MODEL
MAKE THINGS VISIBLE
THE PRINCIPLE OF MAPPING
THE PRINCIPLE OF FEEDBACK
PITY THE POOR DESIGNER
- The Paradox of Technology
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- The Psychology of Everyday Actions
- Falsely Blaming Yourself
- Misconceptions of Everyday Life
Aristotle's Naive Physics
People as Explanatory Creatures
Learned Helplessness
Taught Helplessness
- The Nature of Human Thought and Explanation
- How People Do Things: The Seven Stages
of Action
Forming the Goal
Forming the Intention
Specifying an Action
Executing an Action
Perceiving the State of the World
Interpreting the State of the World
Evaluating the Outcome
- The Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation
The Gulf of Execution
The Gulf of Evaluation
- The Seven Stages of Action as Design Aids
QUERY: How Easily Can the Viewer:
Determine the Function of the Web Pages?
Tell What Actions Are Possible?
Determine Mapping from the Viewer's Intention to
the Correct Physical Movement?
Perform the Action?
Tell if System is in its Desired State?
Determine Mapping from System State to Interpretation?
Tell What State the System is In?
Table of Contents
- Knowledge in the Head and in the World
Precise Behavior Can Emerge from Imprecise Knowledge for Four Reasons:
Much of the Necessary Information is in the World or the Viewer's Memory
Great Precision is Not Required
Natural Constraints are Present
Cultural Constraints are Present
Information is in the World
Great Precision is Not Required
The Power of Constraints
Memory is Knowledge in the Head
The Conspiracy Against Memory
The Sturcture of Memory
Memory for Arbitrary Things
Memory for Meaningful Relationships
Memory through Explanation
Memory is Also Knowledge of the World
Reminding
Natural Mappings
The Tradeoff Between Knowledge in the World and in the Head
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- Knowing What to Do
A Classification of Everyday Constraints
Physical Constrainst
Semantic Constraints
Cultural Constraints
Logical Constraints
Applying Affordances and Constraints to Everyday Objects
The Problem with Doors
The Problem with Switchs
Which Switch Controls Which Function?
How are the Switches Arranged?
Visibility and Feedback
Making Visible the Invisible
Nothing Succeeds Like a Good Display
What Can Be Done?
Using Sound for Visibility
Table of Contents
- To Err is Human
Slips
Types of Slips
Capture Errors
Description Errors
Data Driven Errors
Associative Activation Errors
Loss-of-Activation Errors
Mode Errors
Detecting Slips
Design Lessons From the Study of Slips
Mistakes as Errors of Thought
Some Models of Human Thought
The Connectionist Approach
The Structure of Tasks
Wide and Deep Structures
Shallow Structures
Narrow Structures
The Nature of Everyday Tasks
Conscious and Subconscious Behavior
Explaining Away Errors
Social Pressure and Mistakes
Designing for Error
Design Criteria:
Understand the causes of error and design to minimize those causes.
Make it possible to reverse actions -- to "undo" them -- or make
it harder to do what cannot be reversed.
Make it easier to discover the errors that do occur, and make them easier
to correct.
Change the attitude toward errors. Think of an object's user as attempting
to do a task, getting there by imperfect approximations. Don't think of
the user as making errors; think of the actions as approximations of what
is desired.
How to Deal with Error -- And How Not To.
Forcing Functions
A Design Philosophy:
Put the required knowledge in the world. Don't require all the knowledge
to be in the head. Yet do allow for more efficient operation when the user
has learned the operations, has gotten the knowledge in the head.
Use the power of natural and artificial constraints: physical, logical,
semantic, and cultural. Use forcing functions and natural mappings.
Narrow the gulfs of execution and evaluation. Make things visible, bothe
for execution and evaluation. On the execution side, make the options readily
available. On the evaluation side, make the results of each action apparent.
Make it possible to determine the system state readily, easily, and accurately,
and in a form consistent with the person's goals, intentions, and expectations.
Table of Contents
- The Design Challenge
The Natural Evolution of Design
Forces that Work Against Evolutionary Design
The Typewriter:A Case History in The Evolution of Design
Why Designers Go Astray
Putting Aesthetics First
Designers are Not Typical Users
The Designers Clients May Not Be Users
The Complexity of the Design Process
Designing for Special People
Selective Attention: The Problem of Focus
The Faucet: A Case History of Design Difficulties
Two Deadly Temptations for the Designer
Creeping Featurism
The Worshipping of False Images -- Complexity, Technical Sophistication.
The Foibles of Computer Systems
How to Do Things Wrong
It's Not Too Late to Do Things Right
Computer as Chameleon
Explorable Systems: Inviting Experimentation
Two Modes of Computer Usage
The Invisible Computer of the Future
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- User Centered Design
Design Should:
Make it easy to determine what actions are possible at any moment (make
use of constraints)
Make things visible, including the conceptual model of the system, the alternative
actions, and the results of actions.
Make it easy to evaluate the current state of the system.
Follow natural mappings between intentions and the required actions; between
actions and the resulting effect; and between the information that is visible
and the interpretation of the system state.
Seven Principles for Transforming Difficult Tasks into Simple Ones:
Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
Simplify the structure of tasks.
Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of Execution and Evaluation.
Get the mappings right.
Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial.
Design for error.
When all else fails, standardize.
Use Both Knowledge in the World and Knowledge in the Head
Three Conceptual Models
DESIGN MODEL
USER'S MODEL
SYSTEM IMAGE
The Role of Manuals
Simplify the Stucture of Tasks
Keep the Task Much the Same, But Provide Mental Aids.
Use Technology to Make Visible What Would Otherwise Be Invisible, Thus Improving
Feedback and the Ability to Keep Control.
Automate, But Keep the Task Much the Same
Change the Nature of the Task
Don't Take Away Control
Make Things Visible: Bridge The Gulfs of Execution and Evalutation
Get the Mappings Right: Make Sure That the User Can Determine the Relationships:
Between Intentions and Possible Actions
Between Actions and Their Effects on the System
Between Actual System State and What is Perceivable by sight, sound, or
feel
Between the Perceived System State and the Needs, Intentions, and Expectations
of the User.
Exploit The Power of Constraints, Both Natural and Artifical
Design For Error
When All Else Fails, Standardize.
Standardization and Technology
The Timing of Standardization
Deliberately Making Things Difficult
Designing a Dungeon and Dragons Game
Easy Looking is Not Necessarily Easy to Use
Design and Society
How Writing Method Affects Style
From Quill and Ink To Keyboard and Microphone
Outline Processors and Hypertext
The Home of the Future: A Place of Comfort or a New Source of Frustration
The Design of Everything Things.
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