stevenclark.com.au

One book that I truely believe anyone who is going to design interfaces should read is The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman, a cognitive scientist who with Jakob Nielsen co-founded the Nielsen Norman Group. They are an executive consulting firm specialising in user centered products and services. I strongly doubt anyone who designs websites hasn’t at least heard of Jakob Nielsen, and strongly suggest those who haven’t might be far behind the ballgame. These guys take a scientific approach to the usability factors affecting your products.

This specific book accounted for almost half of a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) unit that I did at University last year, unfortunately the only interface design unit in the entire computing degree. A fact of itself that denotes why major issues exist within software development [Hint: Agile development alone isn't a magic bullet].

The key to this book is that it’s about everyday things like doors, cars, alarms and ovens. It discusses affordances (the way it appears) and constraints (logical, physical, cultural and semantic) as well as conceptual models, mental mapping and the structure of memory. The truth is that we’re not stupid because we can’t figure out how to work something. I recall an awkward few minutes at an airport toilet (restroom) last year where everyone could somehow operate the water taps except me. I was told to put my hands under the water – no water. I moved my hands every which way and still no water! I was shown by a stranger, but when I did the same thing – no bloody water! It’s not because I’m dumb. The tap was dumb, the design was ill conceived, and the designer was over-confident that it would work in my world. Of course he knows how to use it! This book discusses the human factors that impact on your designs out in the real world.

This transposes over to your work as an interface designer, if that’s what you do for a living. Is a certain feature visible, is it obvious what it’s for and does it afford the user an obvious method to use it? Does it make sense in the context that you’ve placed the feature? What are the constraints that apply – for example, is it an enter button that’s coloured red and which might afford the need for caution to some users, or even danger. Does the design say don’t press this button? Often it’s this human psychology that’s missing when designers pull out Photoshop and do their magic dance. So, even though this book is about everyday things it’s also about computer interfaces and web design.

Also, I think The Design of Everyday Things sets a common base language for discussing usability, without which it’s not easy to communicate ideas effectively to any meaningful depth. Much of this is so obvious – so why is my DVD recorder trying to send me insane?

A must read for any designer (with a big D for Designer) interested in learning the craft of creating good products. I should warn you in advance, this book (and it’s concepts) has done nothing to make me a happy employed worker – in fact the opposite. As someone not in the slightest bit interested in making mediocre, or in many cases blatantly stupid, products it can provide as much dissatisfaction as it provides in clarity of the issues. Hopefully you’ll make better use of this knowledge than I’ve been able to achieve. Enjoy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 12:31 pm and is filed under books, design, reviews, usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.