Design of Everyday Things - Norman, Don [103]
AUTOMATE, BUT KEEP THE TASK MUCH THE SAME
There are dangers in simplification: unless we are careful, the automation can harm as well as help. Consider one impact of automation.
As before, the task will stay essentially the same, but parts of it will disappear. In some cases the change is confirmed as a universal blessing. I don’t know of anyone who misses the automatic spark advance in automobiles or cranking the engine to get it started. Just a few people miss having manual control over the automobile choke. On the whole, this type of automation has resulted in useful advances, replacing tedious or unnecessary tasks and reducing what must be monitored. The automatic controls and instruments of ships and aircraft have been great improvements. Some automation is more problematic. Automatic shift on a car: Do we lose some control, or does it help lighten the mental burden of driving? After all, we drive to get to a destination, so the need to monitor engine speed and gearshift position would seem quite irrelevant. But some people take pleasure in performing the task itself; for them, part of driving is using the engine well, believing that they can operate more efficiently than can the automatic device.
What about the automatic pilot of an aircraft, or the automatic navigation systems that have eliminated the sextant and lengthy computations? Or what about frozen, precooked meals? Do the changes destroy the essence of the task? Here there’s more debate. In the best of worlds we would be able to choose automation or full control.
CHANGE THE NATURE OF THE TASK
When a task seems inherently complex because of the manual skill required, certain technological aids can dramatically change which type of skill is required by restructuring the task. In general, technology can help transform deep, wide structures into narrower, shallower ones.
Tying a shoelace is one of the standard, everyday tasks that is actually quite difficult to learn. Adults may have forgotten how long it took them to learn (but they will be reminded if their fingers stiffen with injury, age, or disease). The introduction of new fastening materials—for example, Velcro hook-and-loop fasteners—has eliminated the need for a complex sequence of skilled motor actions by changing the task to one that is considerably simpler, one that requires less skill. The task has become possible for both young children and infirm adults. The example of shoelaces may seem trivial, but it isn’t; like many everyday activities, it is difficult for a large segment of the population and its difficulties can be overcome through the restructuring provided by a simple technology.
The hook-and-loop fasteners provide another example of design tradeoffs (figure 7.2). Hook-and-loop fasteners dramatically simplify shoe fastening for the young and infirm. But they add to the problems of parents and teachers, for children delight in fastening and unfastening their shoes; so a fastener that is more difficult to work has certain virtues. And for sports for which precise support of the foot is required, the best solution still appears to be the shoelace, which can be adjusted so as to offer different tensions at different parts of the foot. The current generation of hook-and-loop fasteners does not have the flexibility of laces.
Digital watches represent another example of how a new technology can supplant an old one; it has delayed or eliminated the need for children to learn the mapping of the analog hands of the traditional clockface onto the hours, minutes, and seconds of the day. Digital timepieces are controversial: in changing the representation of time, the power of the analog form has been lost, and it has become more difficult to make quick judgments about time. The digital display makes it easier to determine the exact time, but harder to make estimates or to see approximately