Jacques Carelman

Chapter 2: “The Psychology of Everyday Things” by Don Norman

Summary and Review of “The Design of Everyday Things,” by Don Norman

Chapter 1: THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY THINGS
Chapter 2: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY THINGS
Chapter 3: KNOWLEDGE IN THE HEAD AND IN THE WORLD
Chapter 4: KNOWING WHAT TO DO: CONSTRAINTS, DISCOVERABILITY, AND FEEDBACK
Chapter 5: HUMAN ERROR? NO, BAD DESIGN
Chapter 6: DESIGN THINKING
Chapter 7: DESIGN IN THE WORLD OF BUSINESS

Hi & welcome! Thanks for joining in on my journey through “The Design of Everyday Things,” by Don Norman. This series summarizes and reviews each chapter, highlighting important takeaways and asking questions about the content.

He we go.

Chapter 2 is both packed with lots of information, but also reiterations on concepts from the last chapter, “The Psychopathology of Everyday Things.” Norman revisits the seven fundamental design principles and introduces (at times helpful) new terms to navigate all the concepts being conveyed.

MAIN CHAPTER TAKEAWAYS

“It is the mechanical thing that should be apologizing, perhaps saying, “I’m sorry. I am so bad with people.” — Don Norman

• There are two “gulfs” users have to get over to use a thing: the “gulf of execution” and the “gulf of evaluation”
• The designer's job is to facilitate the crossing of these gulfs with “bridges”. Yep, the “bridge of execution” and the “bridge of evaluation” utilize the Seven Fundamental Design Principles from the last chapter.
• Norman outlines seven stages of an action, which are largely subconscious like most of the brain’s activity (because of “overlearning”) except when we’re learning something new.
• Subconscious thought (fast and automatic, geared towards regularity), conscious thought (slow and deliberate, comparative, and logical), and emotion are both important to design
• The Three Levels of Processing: visceral, behavioral, and reflective map to the Seven Stages of Action
• People are inclined to make stories about the objects they interact with, and without external direction, they will create their own ideas (their own conceptual model) which can lead to inappropriate understanding, use, and experience of an object.
• Stop blaming users.
• Failure is a gift that aids learning, exploration, and creativity.
• Using good conceptual models and quality feedback, we can accommodate human behavior.

Section 1: How People Do Things: The Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation

We have two hurdles to traverse as humans using objects: figure out how to use the thing and figure out what happened when we used the thing. Norman calls these the gulf of execution and the gulf of evaluation. Designers bridge these gulfs in a few familiar ways. The gulf of execution is aided by affordances, signifiers, constraints, mapping, and conceptual models. The gulf of evaluation is facilitated with feedback and conceptual models.

Section 2: The Seven Stages of Action

Norman describes seven steps users take (subconsciously and consciously) in an action:

1. Goal — we have to have an end goal or objective
2. Plan — how are we going to get there?
3. Specify — out of all the possibilities of action, which one do I choose?
4. Perform — let’s do this!
5. Perceive — okay okay, what happened
6. Interpret — well, I see what happened, but what does it mean?
7. Compare — is this what I wanted to happen?

There is a strict order, limit on how many nested iterations take place, or the length of the cycle. It’s just a simplified tool to use as breakpoints in the design process where we as designers can improve our designs. It can start at the goal stage (“goal-driven”) or the perceiving stage (“event-driven”).

THOUGHTS: This seems so similar to the Design Thinking process. Of course, there are differences, but we’re gathering data, doing an action, and comparing it with an end goal. Subtle shades.

Section 3: Human Thought: Mostly Subconscious

“…things are designed to be used by people, and without a deep understanding of people, the designs are apt to be faulty, difficult to use, difficult to understand.” — Don Norman

Most of what our brains are doing is subconscious. Think about the multiplication tables you memorized. Rote memorization makes recall instant; no problem solving is required. But if I asked you to solve 46 multiplied by 598, you’d (likely) engage in some form of conscious problem-solving. The same engagement is required when we have to learn a new task or run into something unexpected.

Conscious thought is different from subconscious thought. Conscious thought is slow and deliberates ideas, while subconscious thought is automatic and generalizing.

Norman places a lot of emphasis on the importance of emotion in this section in helping us make decisions. It’s emotion, Norman writes, that floods the brain with biochemicals that adjust how our brain operates. He further explores the benefits of both positive (creativity) and negative (focus) emotional states.

THOUGHTS: Deeply appreciate the emphasis on emotions as running in tandem with cognition here. Every day our emotions, only registered after they’ve begun consciously, affect our thoughts and actions and therefore have considerable weight in the design process. Because emotions are involuntary, however, their manipulation of them should be a topic of ethical consideration.

Section 4: Human Cognition and Emotion

In this section, Norman introduces a conceptual model to help navigate the complexity of cognition and emotion, which is taken from his book, “Emotional Design.” He introduces three levels of processing all working at the same time, together: the visceral, the behavioral, and the reflective. All three determine the overall cognitive and emotional state of the person.

The Visceral Level

This level is the level of the automatic response and the present moment. It is an immediate response to the present (think flinching when you see something unexpectedly flying towards you) that takes no survey of context or history. The visceral level is also where conditioning takes place (hats off to dear, sweet Pavlov’s dog). For a designer, Norman discusses the importance of aesthetics at the visceral level. Color psychology, shapes, mood: setting the environment.

The Behavioral Level

According to Norman, the behavioral level handles the execution of previously learned activities. When you want to brush your teeth, you just think “time to scrub” and your body kicks in all the processes to get it done. You have an expectation and there is action. All actions have expectations, and Norman states this is the most important component of the behavioral level for designers.

The Reflective Level

And we’re left with all the conscious stuff. At the reflective level, we process information, deliberate options, assign blame, and find the cause.

Section 5: The Seven Stages of Action and The Three Levels of Processing

Looking back on the seven stages of action, where do the three levels of processing fit in? For Norman, the visceral level is the mood (Norman offers calmness or anxiety) when beginning a task. The behavior level is moved by the goal setting and planning into the performance of the action. The reflective level engages the observation, interpretation, and evaluation of the action’s result (which influences the emotional state).

Norman brings up the state of “flow” in this section and explains the flow state as an engaging state where we are challenged just enough to keep our attention but not so much as to cause frustration. We don’t want to stop.

THOUGHTS: Flow state. Is it a flow state when users don’t want to stop scrolling on social media? I have a desire to say no, a flow state is only learning something new or engaging in a challenging task but is endlessly exposed to new information to process at just the right speed or intensity (like we do on social media) with the added enjoyment of passing judgment feels very similar.

Section 6: People as Storytellers

I hear the word “story” and I immediately reach for my copy of Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth.” Stories are fundamental to how we process our experiences, so it’s no wonder we see the importance of storytelling in design.

Tying stories into Norman’s system, conceptual models, the worst and best of them, are akin to stories. The user images a journey from start to finish laying out their expectation for how an object works. These stories are products of past experiences and similar objects. As a designer, we have the ability to guide users to create the right story, the right conceptual model, the right expectations…or… we could just let them figure it out. Which do you think is the most effective way to avoid failure of use?

Section 7: Blaming the Wrong Things

The thing is, even if folks are using your product incorrectly, they probably aren’t going to send you angry emails. Whew, right? Wrong.

The issue is that people have a tendency, according to Norman, to blame themselves instead of the object.

We know the real cause of the failure, echoing the heavy theme of the book thus far: don’t blame the user, blame the design.

Learned Helplessness

Ever encounter a person who, before even attempting to follow instructions on how to set up an online account, looks at the screen and states, “I’m no good at this.” What about the individual who gets frustrated the moment they see an error message? These people have experienced difficulties with technology before, and instead of thinking “this product is designed poorly,” they think “I clearly have no business doing this; I can’t; I’m not good enough to figure this out,” and so they throw their hands up in surrender the next time they encounter it.

Positive Psychology

Positive experiences and thoughts can help us get through the more difficult and challenging times.

Norman uses this space to emphasize (with bullet points!) the need for approaching feedback with guidance, encouragement, and support. Toss out the unhelpful error message codes. Ensure all designs have exit routes that don’t require users to start over again, and most importantly, be accountable: stop blaming the users for your design’s shortcoming.

Section 8: Falsely Blaming Yourself

Don Norman has engaged with a lot of people and a lot of systems. He’s seen his fair share of people blaming themselves. As expected, he has a whole credo on human error and the need to stop expecting people to behave like machines.

How Technology can Accommodate Human Behavior

Feedback!

Well, not just feedback. But feedback is important. Humans are interactive creatures. Norman also points out how forms that accept many different formats are nice (because humans are different and asking me to put a date in dd/mm/yy will result in an error).

THOUGHTS: this section could be perfect for a call to action for human-centered design processes and the need for research. Learn about the users we design for, right?

Section 9: The Seven Stages of Action: Seven Fundamental Design Principles

The Seven Stages of Action have corresponding questions, that Norman calls “a checklist” every designer should use to ensure the product is well-designed in accordance with the Seven Fundamental Design Principles.

1. Goal → What do I want to accomplish?
2. Plan → What are the alternative action sequences?
3. Specify → What action can I do now?
4. Perform → How do I do it?
5. Perceive → What Happened?
6. Interpret → What does it mean?
7. Compare → Is this okay? Have I accomplished my goal?

“Don’t criticize unless you can do better.” — Don Norman

Don Norman leaves us with a call to action that encourages more thoughtful engagement with our world as designers: don’t just judge the objects around you as good or bad. Instead, he urges us to use the checklist and evaluate where the object lacks communication. What fundamental design principle needs to be improved?

Challenge accepted, Don.