When it comes to the design process, many often design technology and products around how they expect the consumer to use it, forgoing the possible issues that it may cause. This is what Don Norman explains in his book, The Design of Everyday Things. To Norman, good design happens when the object in question gives the interacting agent (In most cases a person) an idea of what action to perform, how to do it, and allows the agent to understand how the product is meant to be used and what each function specifies. Bad design often leaves people confused and can have them miss important steps in the process they are following. Good design can make life easier and prevent issues that may arise that could cause embarrassment, injury, or death. It helps people to think critically and better understand the functions.
The most important part of good design is understanding human psychology and how we operate as a people. Norman is saying that we cannot always design things around logical tasks, but we must be able to empathize with the users that we are designing the products for. I can agree with Norman’s idea of human-centered design. As a brand designer, I often have to make complex products that represent my clients, but also make them simple enough for the client to be able to set up and use. Like how most people that Norman mentioned in Chapter 1 of his book, I used to think it was an easy and logical process, especially since I got most product setups down to 3 easy clicks for each part of it. However, I was wrong and people struggled to navigate and follow the instructions I had left behind and I ended up having to guide them. In my case, the bad design was not giving images and guides to help them navigate their way through the product and only giving them words in the instructions (Which I eventually learned and fixed). Good Design can be further broken down and better understood through Norman’s Fundamental Principles of Interaction.
Fundamental Principles of Interaction
The fundamental principles of interaction are an important part of understanding how interacting agents (people, robots, animals, etc.) perceive and use objects, machines, and other processes. There are 4 main principles that affect this: Affordance, Signifier, Mapping, and Feedback. Each plays its own role in the process of how we interact with objects.
Affordance
Norman defines Affordance as “the relationship between a physical object and a person.” The job of affordance simply is to determine the possible actions that can be done with an object. In our world, A bowl can afford us the ability to hold matter. It can hold food such as cereal, liquids, and other forms of matter. Also because it is lightweight, the bowl can afford to be moved so that we can use it in other places as well (Just chuck it across the room, why doncha?). Another example can be found in Adobe Premiere Pro. I have a slider that affords me to move up and down the timeline (left or right). With this, I have the option to view other parts of the video that I may want to revisit or work on. Even though it doesn’t tell me what the object does, I can infer that it will allow me to see what I am playing or looking at within the preview screen.
Signifier
A signifier is a principle that shows a person where action should take place. For example, in the client I am using to write this blog, there is a button that says “update.” This button is here to signify that if I click it, the page on which this blog uploads would update and add or remove any information whether it be text, images, or links that I have chosen. This is a good design because without this being labeled as ‘update’, I would not be able to update this page with any edits or changes that I would want to present in the future. A real-world signifier would be the labels on the buttons of my remote. Without these labels, I would not be able to know which button does which function on it. For example, if I wanted to power on my television, I would not know which button (usually at the top) would be the one I would need to press.
Mapping
Mapping is one of the easiest concepts to understand because this is how we determine how the action happens. Mapping according to Norman is “the relationship be the elements of two sets of things.” A real-world example would be a microwave. It has many functions mapped to different possible results. If I want to cook popcorn, I use the popcorn feature and it will cook for the amount of time a bag of popcorn should cook for. I can set a custom time or press the “add minute button” to cook it for a specific amount of time as well. This is a Good Design because it allows the user to cook for their own specific need. Essentially it is how objects are linked together to control a specific function. In the game Rainbow Six: Siege, multiple functions take place. In this example (Click image to preview), if I press ‘W’, I move forward. If I press ‘S’, I move backward. If I press I press ‘A’ or ‘D’, I move left or right. If I hold ‘right-click’, I aim down the sights. This is an example of mapping each command I input causes a certain reaction. This is a good design as well because I can change which inputs I want to add for each command. For instance, I could change the key to move forward from ‘W’ to ‘I’, and now that key moves me forward. I have many options that I can use for a specific command.
Feedback
Feedback is the last principle in the list. It is the response that we get from doing the actions that we have initiated. Feedback can come back as positive or negative. If I am playing football and I hit someone, resulting in me breaking my arm. I will receive negative feedback through my body which will result in pain. If I order an item from Amazon, but I want to cancel it, I press the button. Whether or not I cancel it before the order ships will give me a positive or negative response. If I do manage to do it in time, I will have gotten the response I wanted, thus I as the interacting agent will be happy. If I do not, then I will have a negative response and be upset. However, I can still return the package and get a refund if it is unopened, so once again it can be positive feedback. But, it is still negative because I have to wait for the package to arrive, then I have to go through the effort of returning it and requesting a refund. This is a good design because it gives me the option to cancel an item within a certain time frame, but it can be tedious work if I miss that time frame.
