My Twisted Brain

This week’s class (April 30th…a bit late on this post) dealt loosely with interface design, but used more real-world examples to illustrate the importance of design in making things understandable and usable. It was based on a chapter in the book “The Design of Everyday Things” by Donald A. Norman. As the title suggests, the book studies the design of items that we use every day, such as coffee pots, toasters, and doors. In fact, one of Norman’s illustrations is a set of doors that he once became trapped in, due primarily to design that did not afford obvious clues to its operation. They were beautiful doors, but looking at them did not tell you the things that you need to know about doors, such as which way they swing. Most doors have things like doorknobs and hinges that tell you, “Push here, and the door will swing this way.” Norman’s doors had no such clues, which led him to push on the “hinge” side fruitlessly, leaving him trapped. The message here was that you can design the most beautiful of devices, but if you can’t figure out how to use them, how much good are they really?

I shared an example in class of the ticket dispensers used in the parking garage at San Francisco State University. They have little screens, and buttons, and slots covered by plastic doors, but unless you stop and read the (tiny) text on small placards in a darkened garage, there really are very few clues as to how they work. The other day, I stood behind a woman trying to figure it out, and finally had to assist her in feeding her $5 bill into the machine, and pushing the right button (the green one) to get her ticket. Pushing the wrong one would have gotten her a receipt for a refund of her $5 that she would have had to bring back the next day to get her cash, and she still would not have had her valid parking ticket. The controls to these boxes are very compact and clean, but almost impossible to figure out easily (and without losing your money!).

Kim mentioned three fundamental topics of designing functional and pleasing objects:

• Information - How well does the object communicate its operation to you?
• Functionality - How well does the object do what it’s supposed to do?
• Aesthetics - How inviting is the object to use?

These are all important considerations in design, but it’s important to keep in mind that an aesthetically pleasing item that does not communicate its function, or worse is not very functional at all, is fundamentally useless. Norman uses the term “affordance” to indicate how well an object communicates its use. A coffee cup that has a cylindrical cavity and a handle on one side that is the size and shape of your fingers indicates through its design what its function is. An example that Norman uses is a pair of scissors. Looking it the design of the holes on the handle end tell you something about how to hold it so that you can cut paper (or whatever you want to cut). A pair of scissors without holes might confuse the user, and would not do a good job of telling them what they’re for, although they may cut paper just fine.

Designs are also culturally linked.  You have your “Schema” based on your culture.  Some function of design may not be apparent in a different culture. Kim used an example of “chocolate” lipstick. She had taken some lipstick that had been given to her to Africa on one of her many trips. Some of the lipstick was a shade of brown that was very similar to a small, round bar of chocolate. After she handed them out to people who had never seen lipstick before, she turned around and, to her horror I’m sure, saw some of the people taking bites out of the lipstick…they thought it was some new, cool, “twist to feed” chocolate bar!

Instructional design, especially in distance learning using Web 2.0 tools, will rely more and more on good design to help learners figure out how to learn. Tools such as blogs, wikis, and Learning Management Systems (LMSs) will need to be designed with affordances in mind. There won’t always be an instructor there to explain the ins and outs of using learning tools. Designing a killer training program using Web 2.0 technology that your learners can’t figure out won’t teach anyone anything except how to be frustrated. Good design goes beyond making something compelling and beautiful. If a thing is to be useful, it’s got to be usable.