425: HCI 1 The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

1. 425: HCI 1The Psychopathology ofEveryday Things

2. Today's Forecast • Lecture: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things • ICE: Everyday Thing (Critiquing) Field Trip! • AWE: Norman on Design (if time permits ...)

3. Homework • To find out what's due when, turn to the Schedule page of your trusty course web site: • rachmiel.org/425 • That's the second time I mentioned this ... • Since everyone's hanging onto every word I say, I shouldn't have to mention it ever again. • So I won't! • From now on you're on your own re: homework and due dates. ;-)

4. The Design of Everyday Things • Donald Norman • Chapter 1: • The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

5. Psy-cho-pa-tho-lo-gy ... ? • Psychopathology: the study of mental disorders. • The Psychopathology of Everyday Things is an allusion to Freud's classic book Psychopathology of Everyday Life. • Study of errors humans make in their everyday lives • forgetting names, speech mistakes, Freudian slips • Norman’s chapter, like Freud’s book, deals with errors humans make. • Only Norman’s errors are in the realm of using everyday things. • Catalogue d'objets introuvable (Catalog of Unfindable/Impossible Objects) • series of books by French artist Jacques Carelman depicting everyday things that are deliberately unusable, outrageous, ill-formed, paradoxical, just plain stupid! • The teapot on the cover of DOET is from this.

6. Engineering Degree Required? • "Kenneth Olsen, the engineer who founded and still runs Digital Equipment Corp., confessed at the annual meeting that he can't figure out how to heat a cup of coffee in the company's microwave oven." • – Wall Street Journal Is this shocking? Why / why not? Should it be?

7. Engineering Degree Required? • Human brains are brilliant at making sense of the world. • It’s what / we / do. • So why do we make so many mistakes using everyday devices? • cell phones • dvd players • car heaters • mechanical pencils • stovetop burners • Sometimes the mistakes come from our lack of attention. • But, surprisingly often, they come from poor device design. • In other words: It’s (often) not your fault!

8. The Frustrations of Everyday Life • Having a hard time doing everyday things is frustrating. • Good visibility and feedback raises usability, lowers frustration. • More on this soon ... Should (all) everyday things be easy/convenient to perform? Is there any upside to them NOT being easy/convenient?

9. The Psychology of Everyday Things • Psychology: the study of the human mind. • So, the psychology of everyday things is the study of how the human mind interacts with the everyday things around it. • The original title of DOET: The Psychology of Everyday Things. • Norman really liked this, especially because of its acronym: POET. • Alas, sales fell because designers steered clear of a book with "psychology" in its title, and bookstores often misplaced it in the Psychology/Self Help section. • So he compromised and renamed it: The Design of Everyday Things.

10. The Big Six Normanisms • Affordances • Constraints • Visibility • Mapping • Feedback • Conceptual model The Big Six Normanisms Know them. Use them. Love them. They will serve you well, both in this class ... and beyond!

11. Affordances • Affordance: a property of a device that enables it to be used. • The grip of a pistol affords holding. • The barrel sight affords aiming. • The trigger affords pulling (and shooting). • Subjective / objective affordances • Subjective (perceived) affordances of a pistol include: holding, aiming, and shooting . • Objective affordances: hammer a nail into wood, use as a paperweight, hang by a wire from the ceiling as a mobile.

12. Constraints • Constraint: a property of a device that limits its usage. • The trigger guard of a pistol constrains the number of fingers that can be used to pull the trigger to one (or perhaps two). • The physical relationship between the grip and the trigger constrains which finger(s) can be used to pull the trigger (e.g., not the thumb). • The engineering of the trigger constrains the direction it can be moved (backward). • Misperception: Constraint = bad = missing functionality • On the contrary, intelligent use of constraints can greatly increase and simplify an object’s usability.

13. Visibility* • Visibility: the degree to which a device's intended use is visible (apparent) to the user. • The shape of a pistol (grip, barrel, trigger) makes the way it is intended to be held quite visible. • The location and movement of the trigger guard and trigger make the act of pulling the trigger reasonably visible. • The long straight barrel with a hole in one end makes the act of shooting the pistol somewhat, though by no means clearly, visible. • * start at ~ 6:00

14. Mapping • Mapping: the relationship between the controls of a device (knobs, switches, levers, buttons, pedals, keys, etc.) and what these controls can be used for. • Consider the mappings of a pistol: • The grip maps to holding the pistol. • The barrel sight maps to aiming. • The trigger maps to shooting.

15. Natural Mapping, Natural Design • Natural mapping: a mapping that uses physical analogies and cultural standards to make it easy to understand. • The shape of a pistol and everyday laws of physics make it clear that the barrel of a pistol should be pointed at the intended target. • The engineering of the trigger guard (lots of space in front of the trigger, very little behind) make it clear that the trigger should be pulled backwards to shoot. • The safety switch, on the other hand, is not naturally mapped, and for this reason users must work at learning how to use it properly. • Natural design: design that makes use of natural mappings.

16. Feedback • Feedback: information a device communicates back to users about actions they have taken. • Feedback shows users the effects of their actions. • Setting a pistol safety switch to its on or off position might produce an audible feedback click or a palpable drop into a slot. • Loading a bullet properly in the breach might produce an audible and palpable snap. • Shooting produces an audible report and palpable recoil. • Without clear and timely feedback, users can feel lost, clueless, annoyed, unsure how to proceed.

17. Conceptual Models • Conceptual model: a mental image of how a device works. • There are two types of conceptual models: • Design model • the designer's mental image, emerges from designing the device • User's model • the user's mental image, emerges from interacting with device • In general, the closer the user's model is to the design model for a device, the more understandable the device is for the user. • The design and user's models for a pistol are very similar: a pistol is a device that shoots bullets at targets. • The models diverge to some extent when it comes to details: how to load the bullets, how to use the safety, how to minimize recoil, etc.

18. ICE: Big Six Normanisms • Coalesce into groups of 4-6. • Pick an everyday thing in the classroom. • Analyze it in terms of its Big Six Normanisms: • affordances • constraints • visibility • mapping • feedback • conceptual models (design, user's) • Preeeeeesent!

19. 20,000 Everyday Things • We are surrounded by things. • about 20,000 - 30,000 of them • How do we cope with using so many things? • KITH - Knowledge in the Head • KITW - Knowledge in the World • Good conceptual models • And, above all: GOOD USABILITY DESIGNERS! Sp'ICE: How many classroom things can you count in 30 seconds?

20. Make Things Visible • When a device's # possible actions > its # controls • Visibility tends to get dicey. • Usability problems often ensue. Name some devices whose # possible actions > # controls. Is their visibility/usability compromised? How might you improve the visibility/usability?

21. Design for Understandability and Usability • Two fundamental principles of designing successfully for human users: • Provide a good conceptual (user's) model. • Make things visible. • Get these two right and you're well on your way to designing a usable product.

22. Provide a Good Conceptual Model • “… the most important part of a successful design is the underlying conceptual model.” – Norman • Why? • Because good conceptual models enable users: • To mentally simulate operation • To predict effects of their actions • To incorporate existing knowledge • To use metaphors • To feel the object in their gut

23. Pity the Poor Designer ... • Designing well for all parties concerned is very difficult! • Designers want something that’s fun/challenging to build. • Manufacturers want something that’s cheap to build. • Retailers want something that’s sexy and will attract customers. • Repair people wants something that can be fixed easily. • Safety commission wants something that can’t harm humans. • User wants it all: fun, cheap, sexy, easily fixed.

24. The Paradox of Technology • New technologies make life easier. • New technologies make life more complex. • How do 1 and 2 get along with each other? • Well, as our Uncle Marshall McLuhan taught us: • The rise of a new technology means the decline (or, in some cases, extinction) of the technology it replaces • Thus every new technology represents a gain and loss • This is the “price” of technology Name some examples, old and new, of TPoT in action.

25. ICE • Everyday Thing (Critiquing) Field Trip!

26. AWE • Donald Norman at BoS 2009 Conference, Part 1