Good Design vs. Bad Design: The Design of Everyday Things

The most crucial two aspects of good designs, according to Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things (1988, revised 2013), are discoverability and understanding. I agree with Don Norman’s findings and see how such characteristics are important in today’s products. A company that comes to mind that is leading in gadgets/products,  is Apple. Apple scales these features to the extreme and is able to leverage discoverability and comprehension to outperform their competition in their marketing strategy. If you conduct a competitor analysis on companies such as Apple and compare its products to its competitors, you will discover that Apple products are user-friendly and well designed for users to comfortably learn more about their device without technology jargon in an instruction manual. This enables knowledge of the device and how the system works without the need for a tech-savvy background. Apple, in my opinion, does an excellent job with its interface, which allows people to pick up and go.

Don Norman then mentioned four “fundamental principles of interaction”: affordance, signifier, mapping, and feedback. Here are some insights and good design examples to get you started.

 

When we hear the word affordance, we think of its root work “afford.” Afford, to contribute or to advance.We witness a plethora of movements and actions in everyday life, whether at work or at home, that will assist users in not making assumptions about the action but knowing for certain what is the action that will be provided to interact with an object. What can we afford in a design to ensure clear communication?

A physical context example: A popular household item, a garbage can with an attached foot pedal, allows users to push on foot pedal to allow us to dispose of waste, whether our hands are holding too many objects or simply to avoid touching a lid.

 

 

A website/app context example: The controls on a media player that allow us to go Back, Pause/Play, or Next. Users can control what they want to hear next in media apps such as iTunes, Tidal, QuickPlayer, etc., giving them complete control over the intended action.

 

 

 

Then we have signifiers. Symbolically, what can we convey to the user that is easily understood without a long drawn out set of instructions that would ultimately delay the process of communicating  the object.

A physical context example: Highway signs assist travelers in maneuvering safely and efficiently without having to second-guess the imagery or symbols employed. When designing traffic signs, it is critical to be straightforward and careful not to distract the traveler with needless design or wording that will divert their attention and cause an accident.

 

A website/app context example: In the iPhone, there is a Reminder app, which allows users to establish reminders and prioritize them by using exclamation marks (!-!!!, low – high) to rank the reminder and alert the user of an urgent activity. Each reminder has an empty circle to the left of it, signifying that the task has not been completed. Once the activity is performed, the user must click on the circle to fill, which will change the contrast of completed reminders so that it is no longer regarded as an incomplete reminder.

 

 

Don Norman used an automotive seat adjustment control as an example of mapping to demonstrate the relationship between each component of a user interface and the functions that they control.

A physical context example: An adjustable height desk moves up and down with the push of the Up/Down buttons or the set height buttons (H1, H2, H3). The mapping of the buttons are placed off to the side for users to select a desire height and is also able to lock the height to avoid accidental height adjustments.

 

 

A website/app context example: Like all Mail apps, when inside desired inbox, you have the options to swipe left or right on an email to archive mail or another action. With a swipe of the selected email, users can maneuver through their inbox and determine how to better see or filter through mail. This is an example of good design since users can move items around effectively and effortlessly.

 

 

 

The final interaction to consider is feedback. It is vital to include a feature that alerts the user that they are on the right track or that the step they were on has been completed when using a product. How would we know if we were using the product appropriately if there was no feedback feature?

A physical context example:  A microwave that stops/beeps to inform the user that their input was received and completed correctly.

 

 

A website/app context example: We all are familiar with is entering our password into our protected devices and if done incorrectly, the device shows an error message or in some cases, a vibration or sound will go off prompting you to double check your password and try again.