Category: essays

Upon reading the title, I know what some people may be thinking; “How can a door be confusing?  Its only job is to open and close!”  And this is true: a door should not be confusing; however, each of us has likely faced at least one occasion during our adult lives in which we accidentally pushed upon a door that was intended to be pulled, or vice versa – leading to a brief moment of dumbfounded embarrassment when the door does not open.  While we may perceive ourselves at fault in such instances, in reality, this phenomenon often stems from a lack of communication, or even conflicting communication, through design on the specific mechanisms of a given door.

Such doors have come to be referred to as “Norman Doors” named after design researcher Don Norman who has often expressed his grievances with doors of this sort.  “I see others having the same troubles—unnecessary troubles,” says Norman on the subject in his book, The Design of Everyday Things, “The design of the door should indicate how to work it without any need for signs, certainly without any need for trial and error,”

Personally, I agree with Norman’s view; a common mark of bad design, whether it be a TV remote, video game, website, or indeed a doorway, is poor communication on the designs intentions.  In other words, good design should have good communication.

For design to have good communication, Norman specifies that good design should take into account the human interactions of discoverability: “How does this work?”, and understanding: “What is this for?”  In other words, good design should clearly and immediately communicate its function and purpose to the individual.  To do so effectively requires the use of four fundamental principles of interaction: affordance, signification, mapping, and feedback.

AFFORDANCE

Affordances describe the relationship between the properties of a given object and how the user decides to utilize the object.  Despite what many believe, affordances do not describe a property in and of itself – the affordance comes from how a person chooses to interact with those properties.  Take, for example, a sheet of white paper: it is thin, blank, and flimsy – these are its properties.  The affordances paper offers include the ability to be marked for writing or drawing, the ability to be cut into pieces, and the ability to be folded into various shapes and sizes.  Similarly, an application such as Adobe Photoshop has the affordance photo editing and manipulation along with the affordance to create digital art from scratch.

SIGNIFIER

While an affordance may exist, one may require further assistance in recognizing its existence.  This requires the use of a signifier which highlights a specific point or purpose in which a person can use an object.  A signifier can act as a direct statement, such as a “press here” or “pull down”, or it can be communicated through the design of the object itself.  Take, for example, a general Lego brick; the circular grooves on the top in conjunction with the hollowed bottom clue the user into the interlocking nature of the toy-system.  Most websites and applications tend to utilize a good number of signifiers to indicate which icon performs a specific action; however, most sites and apps try to keep to visual or minimal signifiers as to not overwhelm the user with too many options.  Twitter, for example, offers a quality amount of clear visual signifiers when crafting a post.

MAPPING

Mapping refers to the specific relationship between the control and output of an object.  Essentially, it describes how well the function of an object correlates to the physical action made by the user.  For instance, a cursor on a computer screen should actively match the movements made by the sliding of the computer mouse – which directs the cursor to the desired location.  Mapping is especially crucial in virtual design as creators aim to minimize the divide between the user and the screen of a device.  Augmented Reality (AR) applications such as Pokémon GO utilize both the screen and gyroscopic technology to act as a magnifying glass to reveal a hidden reality of Pokémon.

FEEDBACK

Of course, one may not know if the object works as intended if the object provides no proper feedback.  Feedback is the visual or auditory signal that one’s action has been registered by the object.  In mechanical objects, feedback is often conveyed by a chime of some sort, such as the ticking of an egg timer as it counts down.  However, Norman notes that this type of feedback can easily be done rather lazily by companies paying little thought to the design of a product. “They [basic light and sound feedback] tell us that something has happened, but convey very little information about what has happened, and then nothing about what we should do about it,” says Norman.  I believe this sort of confusion occurs when the feedback gained feels non-specific in tone, detached from user action, and only existing in isolation.  Therefore, it may be imperative to have multiple kinds of feedback.  The Apple trash bin, for example, resembles a real-life trash receptacle; and once you drop an item into the bin, the sound of trash entering a metal bin plays.  It is a simple case, but it is still effective.

SUMMARY

A quality design should feature:

• Clear affordance between the object and user.
• Clear signifiers to communicate how said object should be used.
• Clear mapping to make use of the object intuitive for all.
• Clear feedback so the user knows an action has taken place.

By keeping all of these factors in mind, one can ensure that a design is both easy to understand and enjoyable to use.

Works Cited: The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (2013) – Don Norman