The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
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The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
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Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#2For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves.
Another was that obviousness of a feature is how that thing will be used. You don't want people placing stuff on top of walls, don't make them flat.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#3I took a UX methodology class a few years back and the teacher kept referring to this author as the father of UX design. I think its a great book to explain intrinsic usability, how a product should feel natural to the user without needing any instructions. One example was designing mall entrance doors where there is a lot of human traffic, having an arrow or no arrow showing the direction, should you write exit ? Etc.
I very much liked the book.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#4For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. Another was that obviousness of a feature is how that thing will be used. You don't want people placing stuff on top of walls, don't make them flat.
Yeah that's easily the biggest lesson of the book, especially because almost everyone gets it wrong. It's especially noticeable here, so if you haven't read this book yet please do!
The other big lesson I took is about discoverability but I think most people here know about that, even if they don't really notice where it's terrible (Vim, CLIs, Python, etc.)
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#5For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. Another was that obviousness of a feature is how that thing will be used. You don't want people placing stuff on top of walls, don't make them flat.
> For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves.
I think this is a bit too easy. After all it depends on what problem the thing is solving. E.g. if I think of lab test equipment you failing to use it properly might have nothing to do with the design and everything to do with you not having sufficient knowledge in the given domain.
I vehemently oppose the idea that everything needs to be usable without instruction. Sure, everything where it makes sense should be usable without instructions — but it does not make sense everywhere.
That btw. does not mean the design and usability of the lab test equipment cannot be improved uppon. I think any design can be improved uppon till you at least find a local maxima.
But not every design needs to be usable without instruction, because not every tool/object should be usable without instruction.
For other objects usability is simply a function of your ability to understand basic physics. If you e.g. hold a flashlight wrong enough you might emit light at an angle that wont properly illuminate the thing you are meant to illuminate. If you hold a microphone 50cm away and point it in the wrong direction and expect your voice to be heared well, you would have done better with instructions.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#6Invaluable book for designers and developers everywhere. It's amazing how you run into poorly designed things on a daily basis.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#7For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. Another was that obviousness of a feature is how that thing will be used. You don't want people placing stuff on top of walls, don't make them flat.
> For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. I think this is a bit too easy. After all it depends on what problem the thing is solving. E.g. if I think of lab test equipment you failing to use it properly might have nothing to do with the design and everything to do with you not having sufficient knowledge in the given domain. I…
The book is not talking about every single thing, but everyday things, objects people without any domain knowledge should be able to use, like radios, teapots, doors and so on.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#8For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. Another was that obviousness of a feature is how that thing will be used. You don't want people placing stuff on top of walls, don't make them flat.
> For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. I think this is a bit too easy. After all it depends on what problem the thing is solving. E.g. if I think of lab test equipment you failing to use it properly might have nothing to do with the design and everything to do with you not having sufficient knowledge in the given domain. I…
I agree. But the context here is a book called The Design of Everyday Things.
You know, cups and door handles.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#9For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. Another was that obviousness of a feature is how that thing will be used. You don't want people placing stuff on top of walls, don't make them flat.
Back in the day, when VCRs were a thing, everybody used to joke about how no one new how to program theirs. Heck, half of them had the blinking clock forever cause people couldn’t figure out how to reset it.
After reading this book, I realized that maybe if one person can’t program their VCR, you could have argued that it’s their fault. But certainly if so many people have problems with it, it’s clearly an issue with the design.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. I think this is a bit too easy. After all it depends on what problem the thing is solving. E.g. if I think of lab test equipment you failing to use it properly might have nothing to do with the design and everything to do with you not having sufficient knowledge in the given domain. I…
I agree. But the context here is a book called The Design of Everyday Things . You know, cups and door handles.
Yeah I know the book. Yet: your comment made it sound like this idea is universally applicable (which as I demonstrated it isn't).
Knowing which thing is meant to be an everyday thing and which is meant to require some domain specific knowledge is key. Trying to make some specialized tool easier to use than it should be, can harm the usability of the specialized thing. Treating an everyday object as a specialized thing when it is clearly not and pushing the burden of reading the object onto the user is also bad. Both problems can be observed (just think about documentation that starts with "this is completely trivial to use" and then it isn't).
As Dieter Rams said: Good design is honest. That means also that it should not hide the complexity of the actual problem people try to solve with this in a bad way.