Assignment #2 Design of Everyday Things Chapter Thoughts

Chapter 1
This chapter made me realize how important design is on a product's welfare. If the product has a bad design, it will be befuddled by terrible controls and a bad U.I.. It also made me rethink all of the items I take for granted every day. For instance, the smart phone that I use. Thought and consideration went into every placement of every button to make it easier for the end user. I would not think that you would need an engineering degree to design such a slick U.I., but it would definitely help in understanding where to place certain things.

Chapter 2
This chapter reminded me of my time at college and whether or not to ask teachers questions. Taught helplessness is pretty much exactly what I thought of my math class. When I first took calculus 2, I thought it was the hardest thing I have ever taken. Eventually, once I got further behind in my school work and did poorly on a test or two, I figured it was impossible to come back. Luckily, I got over this hump but it still is a serious problem for a large amount of students. We also use forums a lot to ask questions in classes. I also think that most students do not ask in the blog because they are scared of sounding stupid to their peers.

Chapter 3
This chapter was very straight forward so I don't have many strong thoughts on it. It was interesting to index the different kinds of memory. Having signs and reminders in real life is a good way to jog our memory. He said in the book that the person will automatically remember really important events but I find in my life that I can only remember 1 really important thing at a time. This is why I have to use a planner instead of just counting on myself to remember. Now if only I could get myself to check it everyday.

Chapter 4
This chapter talks about constraints and how they very in different categories and even in different cultures. I found cultural constraints the most interesting because they differ from country to country or even from workplace to workplace. Building a lego motorcycle truly was the perfect example for this chapter because it calls for all different kinds of restraints. The police sign is face-up only in countries where text is read that way. Logical constraints in that all pieces must be used. Semantic restraints in how we all know how a motorcycle works and that the rider faces forward. Physical based on the shape of the motorcycle. In order to have good restraints, you need good visibility and feedback.


Chapter 5
Chapter 5 talks about the different types of slips a human can make. I have experienced each and everyone of these but my favorite personally is the loss-of-activation error. I cannot count how many times I've walked into a room only to forge why I was there. As for as design goes, hopefully most of them tailor more towards human error. Back in the day, if you entered a command wrong, you had to go through the whole process again. Now there are warning signs for say when we are deleting something. An instance when the design goes to far in protecting the user is in Windows Vista. Vista's UAC had to ask the user every time he or she wanted to do something which is terrible design.

Chapter 6
Chapter 6 states that design is a constant battle between usability and aesthetics but problems occur when one controls too much. This makes me think of designs that are so simple, its not intuitive on what functions they can perform. On the contrary, designs that are so complicated, you don't even know how to start using the device. My smartphone has had some creeping featurism problems. What started out slick and easy to use, is starting to look convoluted and complicated. Designers must consider both ends of the spectrum and try to not focus too much on one.

Chapter 7
While chapter 6 focused on broad design principles, chapter 7 goes into the specific designs. I never thought about some of these design facts, but making a design easy to evaluate is imperative. This means trying to make it similar to real world examples and give the user feedback on what state its in. The most important aspect is to keep in mind humans will be using this design. Humans make mistakes and need an easy way to escape those mistakes. Designs should be planned for errors in mind and they should not just crash when the human makes an error.