Digesting ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Don Norman

Illustration by Zachary Monteiro

As a society shaped by the booming age of modern science and technology, it is natural that we experience, and value, brevity and convenience in doing simple, everyday tasks.

Nevertheless, it remains a common occurrence for us to push a door that is meant to be pulled, to remain in the dark over what the other eight machine wash settings are, or to wrongly insert a USB drive into its port. Rapid technological advancements can produce highly complex machinery and devices and still fail to make our lives easier.

How so?

Don Norman’s book, ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ (DOET, 1988), encourages readers to take what is often overlooked with more thought, providing the groundwork for what good design should be using his expertise as a cognitive scientist and usability engineer. As well, he exemplifies the importance of good design in providing not just functionality, but also efficiency, ease and satisfaction to the user through thorough examples of poorly designed products that caused people to err, and worse, placed their lives at stake.

In this article, I will summarise the seven chapters of DOET, in hopes of enlightening you on how much thought can and should go into the design of a single object, an object which if done properly, can change a person’s outlook on everyday things.

Chapter 1: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

Illustration by The Toledo Blade

In this chapter, Norman enforces that the human mind is essentially designed to understand the world. Subtly introducing the concept of human-centered design, he reiterates that design should be tailored for people and their needs above all else, in such a way that can be automatically understood without much thought.

Norman thus introduces visibility as one of the most important principles of design, carefully defined as the ‘mapping between intended actions and actual operations’. There needs to be a natural design, that is, a harmony of signals or features in the object which does not require users to be conscious of how they are used. As such, well-designed objects should be easy to interpret through visible clues, while poorly designed objects will be arduous to use from the lack of clues or the presence of misleading ones.

The use of conceptual models works together with visibility to provide understandability and usability in design. It allows us to predict the outcome of actions through our interaction with the system image (the object’s physical structure). The designer’s model of how the object functions must be consistent with how the user assumes it to be.

Elaborating on the concepts of visibility and good conceptual models, he introduces key components to keep in mind:

Affordances are the perceived and fundamental properties of the thing that determine signal how it could be used. Norman uses a chair as an example, with sturdy legs and a low, flat surface affording support and sitting.

Constraints are the exact opposite of affordances — they limit the number of alternatives as to how an object can be used.

Mapping describes the relationship between an object’s features and movements, as well as their consequent outcomes in the world. Natural mappings are the physical analogies and conventional standards about which people have a natural understanding. For example, to steer a car right, you turn the steering wheel to the right.

Feedback is the event in which information about what action has been accomplished is sent back to the user. In this case, an object is well-designed when the feedback received is the object’s desired function and the results are visible to the user.

Finally, he explores the paradox of technology. As previously discussed, while technology has the power to simplify life by expanding the functions of a single device, it can still complicate life by making it harder to understand and use.

Chapter 2: The Psychology of Everyday Actions

Illustration by Roxi Hewertson

DOET explains how an action comprises two aspects: execution and evaluation. A user must understand how to make an object or system work and understand whether or not the goal was achieved. These are referred to as the gulf of execution and the gulf of evaluation, respectively. A well-designed product bridges the gap between the two gulfs through its features and system image.

Norman also introduces the Seven Stages of Action, detailing the approximate steps we take when performing an action or making a decision, including the perception, interpretation and comparison of the outcome. This allows us to be more conscious in setting goals and intentions that are crucial for the achievement of the goal, even in those stages which are completed subconsciously.

Seven Stages of Action

1. Forming the goal
2. Forming the intention
3. Specifying an action
4. Executing the action
5. Perceiving the state of the world
6. Interpreting the state of the world
7. Evaluating the outcome

Through a root cause analysis, as Norman has stated, can designers truly understand people’s intentions, needs and goals. This can be done through the avoidance of assumptions as to what users need, but the continuous asking of “why”.

Furthermore, DOET reveals the close relationship between cognition and emotion, as the three levels of the emotional system, Norman proposes, shape our outlook of the world around us. These three levels are:

Visceral, which is concerned with reactions based on appearance and is responsible for the immediate, automatic human responses;

Behaviour, which is where we unconsciously assess a situation and determine the shortest path to the goal through learned skills;

Reflective, which is where the highest order of thinking occurs, conscious thought, new concepts and deep reasoning take place.

Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World

Illustration from iStock

In Chapter 3, Norman describes that information can be drawn from both ourselves and the environment. People cope with using a foreign object through 1) the psychology of human thought and cognition and 2) the information available from the appearance of objects — the psychology of everyday things.

He outlines how knowledge can be stored partly in the head and partly in the world, and that with a harmonious complementarity between the ‘head’ and the ‘world’, precise behaviour can still result from imprecise knowledge for the following reasons:

1. Knowledge is both in the head and in the world.
2. Great precision is not required if the combined knowledge in the head and in the world is sufficient to distinguish the appropriate action.
3. Natural constraints exist in the world, such as an object’s physical features.
4. Knowledge of cultural constraints and convention exists in the head.

Designers must bridge together these two sources of knowledge, allowing users to make mental models as to how the product design can work. Additionally, they must be aware of the two types of knowledge they can communicate through users:

1. Declarative knowledge (knowledge ‘of’) can be distinguished as knowledge that can be written down and taught, such as facts and rules.
2. Procedural knowledge (knowledge ‘how’) is mostly subconscious knowledge that is mostly demonstrated and learned through practice, such as the performance of music.

When considering an object’s design, it is thus important not only to know the needs of users but also the convenience of the design for users. Signifiers, affordances, constraints, and natural mappings, as discussed in Chapter 1, are tools that can be used to manipulate this.

Chapter 4: Knowing What To Do

Illustration by Saatchi Art

Chapter 4 of DOET is a crucial part of Norman’s book in that he discusses the ways through which designers can use the knowledge in the world to assist users in their experience with a product. Norman recaptures that knowledge in the world includes explicit design cues in the form of affordances, mappings and physical constraints. On the other hand, knowledge in the head can be guided through conceptual models, other forms of constraints and similar past experiences.

Norman furthermore expands on the types of constraints a user can come across in their experience with an object. As discussed, constraints limit the set of possible alternatives to action. It allows the user to determine the most appropriate course of action even in a novel situation, reducing human tendency to err.

Four types of constraints:

Physical constraints constrain the range of operations through an object’s physical features. e.g. A square peg cannot be used with a round hole

Cultural constraints are the accepted range of actions for a given situation, including societal conventions. e.g. Different settings may require eating with forks, chopsticks or even with hands.

Semantic constraints rely on the meaning of a situation to control the range of actions. e.g. Helmets are meant to protect the head and must thus be placed with the shell on top.

Logical constraints require the use of reason to determine the range of actions. e.g. Two switches to control two lights. Logically, the left switch should operate the left light and the right-side switch with the right light.

Chapter 5: To Err is Human

Connection Error Painting by William Campbell

In this section, Norman expounds on how human incompetence is not to blame for errors, but rather poor design. He proceeds to classify errors between mistakes and slips.

Mistakes are made with potentially right actions, but the wrong goal in mind.

Slips are made with unintentionally wrong actions, but the right goal in mind.

It is now clear that humans should not blame themselves for failing at understanding or properly using an object or device. Ergo, designers must meticulously explore why errors occur. That is, they must determine the root cause of the problem. Norman introduces us to the Root Cause Analysis method in which we consecutively ask why to the situation’s previous reasoning.

Example application of the Root Cause Analysis:

1. Why did the plane crash? (Because it was in an uncontrolled dive.)
2. Why didn’t the pilot recover from the dive? (Because the pilot failed to initiate a timely recovery.)
3. Why was that? (Because he might have been unconscious.)
4. Why was that? (We don’t know. Need to find out).
5. Further inquiry as needed.

The lesson of the Root Cause Analysis is that we usually end our inquiry too soon.

Tips on designing for error:

• Understand the causes of error and design to minimise those causes.
• Do sensibility checks. Does the action pass the ‘common sense’ test?
• Make it possible to reverse actions (to ‘undo’ them) or make it harder to do what cannot be reversed.
• Make it easier for people to discover the errors that do occur, and make them easier to correct.
• Don’t treat the action as an error; rather, try to help the person complete the action properly. Think of the action as an approximation to what is desired.

Chapter 6: The Design Challenge

Climbing the Corporate Ladder Painting by Leon Zernitski

In this chapter of DOET, Norman highlights the need to thoroughly understand the root problem, as it is an all-too-common case that people dive straight into finding a solution without checking if they’re in the right waters. Ultimately, designers will waste resources on a product that does not solve the right problem or that does not appeal to users.

Good designers never start by trying to solve the problem given to them: they start by trying to understand what the real issues are. As a result, rather than converge upon a solution, they diverge, studying people and what they are trying to accomplish, generating idea after idea after idea. (218)

DOET introduces us to human-centered design (HCD), a procedure for addressing the requirements of the principles of design, but with an emphasis on two things: 1) solving the right problem, and doing so in a way that 2) meets human needs and capabilities. HCD is the process of ensuring that people’s needs are met, that the product does not just accomplish desired tasks but is also comprehensible, and the experience of use is pleasurable. Stages of HCD include:

• Observation(Research & Understanding of the problem)
• Idea Generation
• Prototyping & Testing

Chapter 7: User-Centered Design

Illustration by Mark Miraglia

Finally, Norman captures real-life examples of how the principles and concepts learnt in DOET can be applied in the world around us. The most important takeaways have been summarised as follows.

Design should:

1. Make it easy to determine possible actions instantaneously
2. Make things visible
3. Make it easy to evaluate the current state of the system
4. Follow natural mappings between intentions and the required actions

Seven principles for transforming difficult tasks into simple ones:

1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head
2. Simplify the structure of tasks
3. Bridge the Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation (make things visible)
4. Get the mappings right
5. Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial
6. Design for error, accommodate for it
7. When all else fails, standardise

From feather and quill to keyboards and microphones, Norman exposes the obvious advancement of technology and innovation over time. There are two types of innovation that can occur:

1. Incremental innovation (less glamorous, but most common) e.g. Lead pencils
2. Radical innovation (most glamorous, but rarely successful) e.g. Apple devices

However, with rapid growth in technological improvements comes the desire for newer, better products instantly. Norman cautions us about featuritis, a phenomenon whereby designers constantly add new features to a successful product that it becomes overcomplicated and profusely obfuscates what was once a simple, elegant solution.

Reasons for featuritis:

• Existing customers want more features, functionality and capabilities.
• Competing companies add new features that create pressures to match those offerings.
• The market is saturated or stagnant. Adding new enhancements will boost the upgrade cycle.

Illustration by UX Collective

Thus, the next time you walk into what you thought was an automatic door (but is actually meant to be slid manually) and walk away in frustration and embarrassment, fret not. Our pains are not always due to our human incompetence in understanding the design, but due to the designer’s incompetence in understanding our needs.