The Psychology of Usable Things Chapter 2 PDF

Chapter 2 The Psychology of Usable Things “ When simple things need pictures, labels, or instructions, the design has failed. ” [ Don Norman, The Psychology of Everyday Things, 1988 [Norman 1988, page 9] ] This chapter is based around Don Norman’s...

Chapter 2 The Psychology of Usable Things “ When simple things need pictures, labels, or instructions, the design has failed. ” [ Don Norman, The Psychology of Everyday Things, 1988 [Norman 1988, page 9] ] This chapter is based around Don Norman’s classic book, The Psychology of Everyday Things [Norman 1988]. References ++ Donald Norman; The Design of Everyday Things; Basic Books, Revised Edition, 05 Nov 2013. ISBN 0465050654 (com, uk) [Norman 2013] ++ Donald Norman; The Design of Everyday Things; Basic Books, 1992. ISBN 0465067107 (com, uk) [Norman 1992] [ This is the renamed paperback reprint of the original hardbound book The Psychology of Everyday Things [Norman 1988]. ] ++ Donald Norman; The Psychology of Everyday Things; Basic Books, 1988. ISBN 0465067093 (com, uk) [Norman 1988] [This is the original hardbound edition.] + Donald Norman; Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles; Addison-Wesley, 1993. ISBN 020162236X (com, uk) [Norman 1993] + Donald Norman; Things That Make Us Smart; Addison-Wesley, 1994. ISBN 0201626950 (com, uk) [Norman 1994] + Donald Norman; Living with Complexity; MIT Press, 2016. ISBN 0262528940 (com, uk) [Norman 2016a] George Lakoff and Mark Johnson; Metaphors We Live By; New Edition, University of Chicago Press, 2003. ISBN 0226468011 (com, uk) [Lakoff and M. Johnson 2003] Leonard Lee; The Day the Phones Stopped Ringing; Plume, 1992. ISBN 1556112866 (com, uk) [L. Lee 1992] [Out of print] + Jeff Johnson; Designing with the Mind in Mind; 3rd Edition, Morgan Kaufmann, 06 Oct 2020 ISBN 0128182024 (com, uk) [J. Johnson 2020] Jeff Johnson and Austin Henderson; Conceptual Models: Core to Good Design; Morgan & Claypool, 2011. ISBN 1608457494 (com, uk) [J. Johnson and Henderson 2011] 7 8 CHAPTER. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF USABLE THINGS Jeff Johnson; GUI Bloopers 2.0; Morgan Kaufman, 2007. ISBN 0123706432 (com, uk) [J. Johnson 2007] Jeff Johnson; Web Bloopers; Morgan Kaufman, 2003. ISBN 1558608400 (com, uk) [J. Johnson 2003] Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis; Web Pages That Suck; Sybex, 1998. ISBN 078212187X (com, uk) [Flanders and Willis 1998] Vincent Flanders and Dean Peters; Son of Web Pages That Suck; Sybex, 2002. ISBN 0782140203 (com, uk) [Flanders and Peters 2002] Online Resources Donald Norman; Human Error? No, Bad Design; 13 Apr 2014. https://jnd.org/stop_blaming_ people_blame_inept_design/ Jakob Nielsen and Page Laubheimer; Top 10 Application-Design Mistakes; NN Group, 17 Feb 2019 https://nngroup.com/articles/top-10-application-design-mistakes/ Jaye Hannah; 10 Classic UX Design Fails That Teach Us How Not To Do UX; Career Foundry, 02 May 2019 https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/10-classic-ux-design-fails/ Bagaar; User Inyerface; Bagaar, 17 Feb 2019 userinyerface.com [Intentionally horribly frustrating UI.] Michael Darnell; Bad Human Factors Designs; baddesigns.com [Darnell 2010] [Last updated 2010.] Mark Hurst; This Is Broken; https://web.archive.org/web/20080122124018/http://goodexperience. com/tib/ [Last updated 2007.] Isys Information Architects; Interface Hall of Shame; https://web.archive.org/web/20021105045514/ http://www.iarchitect.com/shame.htm [Went offline 2002.] Wired; History’s Worst Software Bugs; https://wired.com/software/coolapps/news/2005/11/69355 Computer Stupidities; http://rinkworks.com/stupid/ [Last updated 2013.] Web Pages That Suck; webpagesthatsuck.com [Last updated 2014.] Teo Siang; Bad Design vs. Good Design: 5 Examples We can Learn From; https://interaction- design.org/literature/article/bad-design-vs-good-design-5-examples-we-can-learn-frombad-design- vs-good-design-5-examples-we-can-learn-from-130706 Weblium Blog; Breaking Bad: 21 Bad Website Examples; https://weblium.com/blog/21-bad-website- examples-of-2022/ Wikipedia; Affordance; https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance Wikipedia; Natural Mapping; https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_mapping 2.1 The Psychopathology of Everyday Things Examples of where the design of everyday things went wrong... THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY THINGS 9 Figure 2.1: The most basic functionality of a video recorder, playing a tape, is easy to use. However, anything more advanced, such as programming a recording, can become rather difficult. Opening a Milk Carton Classic example from Austrian TV [ORF 1989]. [Video: https://youtu.be/2-p8YpR7rJc] Glass bottles were being replaced by new cartons. On live TV, a manager demonstrates how easy it is to open the new cartons...... but everything goes rather wrong! The original was broadcast live on the program “wir”, but was later rebroadcast in the outtake show “Hoppala” (hence the laughter over the original soundtrack). Early Tractors Early tractors had a high centre of gravity and narrow wheel base. On rough, hilly surface ! disaster! Used to be called “driver error”. More probably “design error”, since tractors today are designed with a low centre of gravity and wide wheel base. The Frustrations of Everyday Life Can you use all the functions of your: digital watch? mobile phone? washing machine? video recorder? 10 CHAPTER. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF USABLE THINGS Figure 2.2: Some of the buttons on a VCR remote control are easy to understand, but others are unfathomable without the instruction manual. Zeiss Slide Projector Only one button to control the slide advance, see Figure 2.3. During lectures, sometimes the slides go forwards, sometimes they go backwards... If you can find an instruction manual: Short press = forward, long press = backward. What an elegant design, two functions with just one button! But how should first-time users know what to do? The Louis-Laird Amphitheatre in the Sorbonne Magnificent murals on the ceiling. – But only the right way up for the lecturer. Electric projection screen. – Has to be lowered from a back room up a short flight of stairs, out of sight. Could Someone Please Turn the Lights Down Figure 2.4 shows the control panel for the lecturer at the front of the old lecture theatre HS EDV. I often had to assist guest speakers in turning the lights down (but not completely off)... THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY THINGS 11 Figure 2.3: The Zeiss Ikon Perkeo 511 slide projector. A short press advances to the next slide, a long press moves back one slide, but how should first-time users know this? [Thanks to Horst Ortmann for providing the photograph.] Start Deckenlicht Tafellicht 0 1 DIA Projektor 0 1 2 Lüftung Figure 2.4: The control panel for the lecturer in the old lecture theatre HS EDV of Graz University of Technology. 12 CHAPTER. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF USABLE THINGS Figure 2.5: The audiovisual trolley in lecture theatre HS EDV has input connectors at the rear. Unfortunately, unscrewing the external connector causes the internal connector to fall with a clunk somewhere inside the trolley! The problem is that four (!) separate controls are mapped to the single green button (Deckenlicht): – Depressing and releasing the green button either turns the lights completely on or completely off, depending on whether they are currently on or off. – Holding the green button down either dims or increases lighting, depending on whether it was last dimmed or increased. The air conditioning control (Lüftung) is also problematic: 0 is off, 1 is on, and 2 is off (!). Clunky Connector The audiovisual control trolley (see Figure 2.5) at the front of lecture theatre HS EDV also caused me a major problem. Intending to hook up my laptop to the ceiling mounted projector, I unwittingly unscrewed the monitor cable connector from the outside of the trolley. This resulted in a dull clunking sound from inside the trolley. Unfortunately, the internal connector had only been secured by virtue of its being attached to the external connector! It took three days for a technician to arrive, disassemble the trolley, and reconnect everything. To remind myself and to warn others, I resorted to the last ditch technique of providing the label shown in Figure 2.6... THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY THINGS 13 Figure 2.6: I provided this label as a warning to myself and others. Where is the Toilet Paper? Fancy hotel, nice bathrooms, see Figure 2.7. Having sat down and done the business, where the heck is the toilet paper? Ah, there it is! Well-hidden, see Figure 2.8. At least it was still in reaching distance, see Figure 2.9. This is a Mop Sink A picture from the men’s toilet of a restaurant in Santa Barbara, see Figure 2.10. There is no urinal in the toilet. Where do you think most men relieve themselves? The label says “This is a Mop Sink”, see Figure 2.11. The mop sink looks enough like a urinal to be used as one. This example is from Baddesigns.Com [Darnell 2010] http://baddesigns.com/mopsnk.html This is a Measuring Device A photo from the restroom of a doctor’s surgery in Graz, Austria, see Figure 2.12. Are there two toilets?