So I've finished reading The Design of Everyday Things. The author, Donald Norman, had a lot of really good things to say. His main focus was to point out the design flaws in the objects that are used in a person's everyday routine and offer both explanations and solutions to these problems. I found that after reading the book my eyes were opened up and I became more aware of the devices that I use around me. Norman stressed that most user errors are not actually the fault of the user but a fault of the designer. This was a bold statement for me because in reality most errors are blamed on users. One aspect of the book (completely unintentional) that fascinated me was Norman's wants for a future device. Since the book was printed in 1988, there has been ample time and technology advances to make his dream-device a reality. I was pleased that Norman's description for the perfect handheld device describes most of the smart phones that we use today. Sure, the interface is not perfect, but it is getting to the caliber that the author felt consumers deserve. One criticism of the book would be the volume of examples he gave. Norman would present an idea then follow it up with 5 or 6 examples to prove his point. This quickly became tedious and his criticism began to feel a little like whining.
After reading the book The Design of Everyday Things, I became much more aware of the devices I interact with. Donald Norman had so many examples of design gone completely wrong that I began thinking about my worst encounter with a poorly defined interface. The first thing that came to my mind was the 2nd generation iPod. The interface for navigating through thousands of songs was brilliant. In fact, I believe that's the main reason iPods flew off the shelves in the beginning. The problem I have with the design of the 2nd generation iPod is the way it turns off. The way the the device turns off is by holding down the play/pause button for a period of a few seconds. First off, without reading the manual there is no way you would ever know that this function existed. Being able to turn the device off isn't a trivial function yet it's hidden beneath a button with other functions associated with it. Even if you can get past that, turning off the thing is no walk in the park. The buttons provide no tactile feedback plus the capacitance grid on the button itself wasn't always a sure thing. The combination would result in the following:
1) hold down the play button for a few seconds
2) nothing happens or the music pauses/plays
3) release the button and repeat steps 1-3 until you lose your sanity
In a lot cases turning the device off needed to happen the quickest yet it took the most time. This is where the iPod failed.
Your right Norman does make too many examples for each of his points, it makes you want to throw up.
ReplyDeleteSeems like iPod should have made an indicator for the power off button, with the power off symbol like we have on computers and things. But apples wants to keep their sleek no markings design.
I had this exact same problem with my iPod Nano, a generation one model. And I looked it up to see how to turn it off. The display does eventually turn off, but it seems to turn back on very quickly, like it was in sleep mode, not completely off.
ReplyDeleteI think that they should have a switch at the top to turn the device off, and put the hold switch on the side.