Design of Everyday Things [8]
My colleagues in the design community were most helpful with their comments: Mike King, Mihai Nadin, Dan Rosenberg, and Bill Verplank. Special thanks must be given to Phil Agre, Sherman DeForest, and Jef Raskin, all of whom read the manuscript with care and provided numerous and valuable suggestions.
Collecting the illustrations became part of the fun as I traveled the world with camera in hand. Eileen Conway and Michael Norman helped collect and organize the figures and illustrations. Julie Norman helped as she does on all my books, proofing, editing, commenting, and encouraging. Eric Norman provided valuable advice, support, and photogenic feet and hands.
Finally, my colleagues at the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego, helped throughout—in part through the wizardry of international computer mail, in part through their personal assistance to the details of the process. I single out Bill Gaver, Mike Mozer, and Dave Owen for their detailed comments, but many helped out at one time or another during the research that preceded the book and the several years of writing.
CHAPTER ONE
THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY THINGS
“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.”1
You Would Need an Engineering Degree to Figure This Out
“You would need an engineering degree from MIT to work this,” someone once told me, shaking his head in puzzlement over his brand new digital watch. Well, I have an engineering degree from MIT. (Kenneth Olsen has two of them, and he can’t figure out a microwave oven.) Give me a few hours and I can figure out the watch. But why should it take hours? I have talked with many people who can’t use all the features of their washing machines or cameras, who can’t figure out how to work a sewing machine or a video cassette recorder, who habitually turn on the wrong stove burner.
Why do we put up with the frustrations of everyday objects, with objects that we can’t figure out how to use, with those neat plastic-wrapped packages that seem impossible to open, with doors that trap people, with washing machines and dryers that have become too con-fusing to use, with audio-stereo-television-video-cassette-recorders that claim in their advertisements to do everything, but that make it almost impossible to do anything?
1.1 Carelman’s Coffeepot for Masochists. The French artist Jacques Carelman in his series of books Catalogue d’objets introuvables (Catalog of unfindable objects) provides delightful examples of everyday things that are deliberately unworkable, outrageous, or otherwise ill-formed. Jacques Carelman: “Coffeepot for Masochists.” Copyright © 1969-76-80 by Jacques Carelman and A. D. A. G. P. Paris. From Jacques Carelman, Catalog of Unfindable Objects, Balland, éditeur, Paris-France. Used by permission of the artist.
The human mind is exquisitely tailored to make sense of the world. Give it the slightest clue and off it goes, providing explanation, rationalization, understanding. Consider the objects—books, radios, kitchen appliances, office machines, and light switches—that make up our everyday lives. Well-designed objects are easy to interpret and understand. They contain visible clues to their operation. Poorly designed objects can be difficult and frustrating to use. They provide no clues—or sometimes false clues. They trap the user and thwart the normal process of interpretation and understanding. Alas, poor design predominates. The result is a world filled with frustration, with objects that cannot be understood, with devices that lead to error. This book is an attempt to change things.
The Frustrations