Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

elvischidera.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 128 posts

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#101

Post by nickff »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #82
bern4444 wrote: post #78

I am always amazed at how poorly designed bathroom sink faucets are. The spout where the water comes out is always so close to the far edge instead of to the middle of the sink. Placing the spout so the water exits in the middle of the sink would be so much nicer. You wouldn't have to lean over, your hands wouldn't be hitting the back of the sink, and you'd have so much more room to wash your hands.

I'm not sure it's a good idea, but I've always wondered why we don't have more sink fountains. A stream of water that shoots up into the air and falls into the middle of the sink (ideally, going directly down the hole in the middle). That would make it so the faucet never blocks you from putting something big in the sink, and it would be aesthetically very nice I think.

It'd be very pretty and modern, but you'd be very likely to splash or splatter water out of the sink with that sort of design.

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#102

Post by BurningFrog »

the_af wrote: post #56
VieEnCode wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly suspect that many awards in the legal industry work in this way also.

Surely I'm naive, but I realized just a few years ago that all awards of the kind "best place to work 2022" and such are all paid for, nobody "wins" a real competition. Your workplace pays the ranking company and is advised on how to improve some made up stats and after a while it "wins" an "award" within the small subset of companies that paid for that service. By "realized this" I really mean "I was shown this real…

The impossibility to measure such a thing, at least within the modest means of the publication issuing the award, should be the clue telling you something is wrong.

I'm not sure I realized it before hearing about the payments myself though.

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#103

Post by Stratoscope »

atoav wrote: post #5
smusamashah wrote: post #2

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. 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…

> If you hold a microphone 50cm away and point it in the wrong direction and expect your voice to be [heard] well, you would have done better with instructions.

I used to see this in church settings where someone would come up front to "give a testimony" (share a personal anecdote) and be handed a typical SM58-style vocal mic. They would hold it nearly at arms length pointed straight up, so they were talking off the side of this directional mic.

It drove the sound guys and the entire congregation nuts.

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#104

Post by culopatin »

tablespoon wrote: post #88
bern4444 wrote: post #78

I am always amazed at how poorly designed bathroom sink faucets are. The spout where the water comes out is always so close to the far edge instead of to the middle of the sink. Placing the spout so the water exits in the middle of the sink would be so much nicer. You wouldn't have to lean over, your hands wouldn't be hitting the back of the sink, and you'd have so much more room to wash your hands.

> I am always amazed at how poorly designed bathroom sink faucets are. > The spout where the water comes out is always so close to the far edge instead of to the middle of the sink. > Placing the spout so the water exits in the middle of the sink would be so much nicer. You wouldn't have to lean over, your hands wouldn't be hitting the back of the sink, and you'd have so much more room to wash your hands. That would…

I think this is a mismatch between the sink and the faucet and it’s totally the installer/chooser fault, not the faucet. There are sinks and sinks, the match has to work. In my rental there are two bathrooms. Both have the same faucet, different sink. One makes me bank my knuckles on the sink, the other one doesn’t (but it leaks). It can be done

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#105

Post by gumby »

dan-robertson wrote: post #70
gumby wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe those people just aren’t so afraid to damage/replace their watch but I find that a little hard to believe. It’s a Vleben good: it doesn’t simply signify that you have money to throw away, but shows that you have a lifestyle in which your expensive watch won’t get damaged.

But sports watches / ‘dive’ watches seem pretty popular. Maybe the sports involved aren’t so likely to involve damaging the watch somehow.

That's for a lower tier and/or for sending a different message. Someone with a million dollar watch presumably has several for different purposes.

I wear the cheapest apple watch and could easily replace it if it breaks, but never has even when the limb bearing it has.

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#106

Post by yboris »

WalterBright wrote: post #97

These kinds of things assume critical importance in the design of an aircraft cockpit. For example, the lever that controls the landing gear has a little tire for the knob. The flap controls have a knob shaped like a flap. All so you know what the control is without needing to look (or the cockpit is filled with smoke). The common theme with all these designs is they are driven by accidents. For some strange reason,…

> humans are pretty bad at creating intuitive designs

I've always assumed that is because so few people care about design who are in power of affecting design. This is partially because it takes effort to think about a problem, and it's much easier to not care, or assume someone else will fix it.

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#107

Post by diob »

yboris wrote: post #106
WalterBright wrote: post #97

These kinds of things assume critical importance in the design of an aircraft cockpit. For example, the lever that controls the landing gear has a little tire for the knob. The flap controls have a knob shaped like a flap. All so you know what the control is without needing to look (or the cockpit is filled with smoke). The common theme with all these designs is they are driven by accidents. For some strange reason,…

> humans are pretty bad at creating intuitive designs I've always assumed that is because so few people care about design who are in power of affecting design. This is partially because it takes effort to think about a problem, and it's much easier to not care, or assume someone else will fix it.

It's more about unknown unknowns.

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#108

Post by jacobr1 »

yboris wrote: post #106
WalterBright wrote: post #97

These kinds of things assume critical importance in the design of an aircraft cockpit. For example, the lever that controls the landing gear has a little tire for the knob. The flap controls have a knob shaped like a flap. All so you know what the control is without needing to look (or the cockpit is filled with smoke). The common theme with all these designs is they are driven by accidents. For some strange reason,…

> humans are pretty bad at creating intuitive designs I've always assumed that is because so few people care about design who are in power of affecting design. This is partially because it takes effort to think about a problem, and it's much easier to not care, or assume someone else will fix it.

It is about feedback-loops. Even well-funded, top-down design is going to have cognitive gaps. Also it needs to be continuous, usage changes, users/people/customer change, features are added. Other tools in outside environment are adopted, etc ... All these need to be continuously evaluated. tested, and reconsidered. Plenty of people in power acknowledge UX to be important enough to "approve a headcount" but it probably is too limited, narrowly focused, and only focused on new stuff.

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#109

Post by jacobr1 »

bluGill wrote: post #72
the_af wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely I'm naive, but I realized just a few years ago that all awards of the kind "best place to work 2022" and such are all paid for, nobody "wins" a real competition. Your workplace pays the ranking company and is advised on how to improve some made up stats and after a while it "wins" an "award" within the small subset of companies that paid for that service. By "realized this" I really mean "I was shown this real…

How would you even grade such a thing? I can't think of any objective way to grade best place to work. I work where we get free soda - I've been here for 10 years and still haven't used it, so for me this doesn't make it great. I have a sit-stand desk, I'm one of the few people who use the buttons to switch every day, so for me this is great, but for most it is a muh thing. There are ping-pong tables in some offices.…

The way it works is a questionnaire is created by the rating agency, meant to cover a wide degree of workplace factors. The do tend to cover the ones that have some academic rigor, like questions about autonomy or career growth, beyond the fluffy ones. Weighting of these factors hasn't ever been transparent to me as an employee. And it does seem to be pay-to-play to be considered, but there is an attempt at objectivity. But for your example, if 90% of the employees say they enjoy coming to work everyday, or they would recommend working to in that workplace to a colleague at a different firm, then independent of the factors enabled such opinions, that company did something right, modulo people just giving bullshit answers.

Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes

#110

Post by h2odragon »

Stratoscope wrote: post #103
atoav wrote: post #5

Earlier 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…

> If you hold a microphone 50cm away and point it in the wrong direction and expect your voice to be [heard] well, you would have done better with instructions. I used to see this in church settings where someone would come up front to "give a testimony" (share a personal anecdote) and be handed a typical SM58-style vocal mic. They would hold it nearly at arms length pointed straight up, so they were talking off the…

Tape paper around it in a little cone shape. people will speak into the cone.
Post reply on HN