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By Root 2549 0

” is the official cause. But careful analysis of these kinds of incidents usually gives the lie to such a story. At the famous American nuclear power plant disaster at Three Mile Island, the blame was placed on plant operators who misdiagnosed the problems. But was it human error? Consider the phrase “operators who misdiagnosed the problems.” The phrase reveals that first there were problems—in fact, a series of mechanical failures. Then why wasn’t equipment failure the real cause? What about the misdiagnoses? Why didn’t the operators correctly determine the cause? Well, how about the fact that the proper instruments were not available, that the plant operators acted in ways that in the past had always been reasonable and proper? How about the pressure relief valve that failed to close, even though the operator pushed the proper button and even though a light came on stating it was closed? Why was the operator blamed for not checking two more instruments (one on the rear of the control panel) and determining that the light was faulty? (Actually, the operator did check one of them.) Human error? To me it sounds like equipment failure coupled with serious design error.

And, yes, what about my inability to use the simple things of everyday life? I can use complicated things. I am quite expert at computers, and electronics, and complex laboratory equipment. Why do I have trouble with doors, light switches, and water faucets? How come I can work a multimillion-dollar computer installation, but not my home refrigerator? While we all blame ourselves, the real culprit—faulty design—goes undetected. And millions of people feel themselves to be mechanically inept. It is time for a change.

Hence this book: POET, The Psychology of Everyday Things. POET is an outgrowth of my repeated frustrations with the operation of everyday things and my growing knowledge of how to apply experimental psychology and cognitive science. The combination of experience and knowledge has made POET necessary, at least for me and for my own feeling of ease.

So here it is: part polemic, part science. Part serious, part fun: POET.

Acknowledgments

POET was conceived and the first few drafts written while I was in Cambridge, England, on a sabbatical leave from the University of California, San Diego. In Cambridge, I worked at the Applied Psychology Unit (the APU), a laboratory of the British Medical Research Council.

Special thanks are due to the people at the APU for their hospitality. They are a special group of people, with special expertise in applied and theoretical psychology, especially in the topics of this book. World-famous experts in the design of instruction manuals, warning signals, computer systems, working in an environment filled with design flaws—doors that are difficult to open (or that bash the hands when they do), signs that are illegible (and nonintelligible), stovetops that confuse, light switches that defy even the original installer to figure them out. A striking example of all that is wrong with design, lodged in the home of the most knowledgeable of users. A perfect combination to set me off. Of course, my own university and my own laboratory have horrors of their own, as will become all too apparent later in this book.

A major argument in POET is that much of our everyday knowledge resides in the world, not in the head. This is an interesting argument and, for cognitive psychologists, a difficult one. What could it possibly mean for knowledge to be in the world? Knowledge is interpreted, the stuff that can be only in minds. Information, yes, that could be in the world, but knowledge, never. Well, yeah, the distinction between knowledge and information is not clear. If we are sloppy with terms, then perhaps you can see the issues better. People certainly do rely upon the placement and location of objects, upon written texts, upon the information contained within other people, upon the artifacts of society, and upon the information transmitted within and by a culture. There certainly is a lot of information out there