Emotional Design

Emotional Design
By: Donald A. Norman

Book Comparison

        The book Emotional Design has a much different view point on the design of devices from the book Design of Everyday Things, also by Donald A. Norman, after reading just the first chapter.  Emotional design in Design of everyday Things is described more to be a trap for designers to make devices that are not friendly to users, but are aesthetically pleasing.  In Emotional Design, studies making a device "pretty" are proven to be easier to use than a similar device that is simply not as visually like able.  Each book has a different emphasis of possible aspects in designing devices.  

        In Design of Everyday Things the emphasis was clearly on usability and intuitive devices.  In my opinion, usability is much more important than aesthetics.  An ugly design that is easy to use will trump a majestic design that is impossible to understand.  Explaining how to create a usable design is also harder to do.  This book does a great job at isolating what makes an intuitive design and what went wrong with designs that are unusable.  It is not easy to know if a design is intuitive by looking at its as it is easy to see if a design is appealing.  Usability is always more important, but a great design has a bad chance of getting noticed if it is not also visually appealing.  

        In Emotional Design, the benefits of visually appealing designs are discussed. As well as the psychological reasons people are drawn to particular designs and the thought processes behind them.  Dr. Norman explains that natural human tendencies effect how people see things.  This does not mean that all people have the same opinions about devices because that is clearly not true.  Our experiences can either emphasize emotions people are born with or dampen them to where they are nonexistent.  The fear of heights is a good example Dr. Norman explains.  Everyone is born with a fear of heights, but through experiences some people may develop acrophobia or on the other hand have no fear of heights at all.  Every emotion is developed like this by everyone.  These emotions are what decide every aspect of how people interact with devices and should be considered in a design.
        

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #5

Bad Design #5: Unlabeled Sinks

This is the sink in my bathroom.  As you can see, there is no visible way of knowing which knob is the hot and which is the cold.  I constantly get them confused and have even had arguments with my roommates about which one is which.  The hot water takes a while to get warm and the cold water gets warm for a little while before getting cold, so it sends a lot of mixed signals about which is actually the hot one and which is actually the cold.  I have let the cold water run thinking it was the hot water. I would be waiting for it to get hot only to realize I just wasted a bunch of water for no reason at all.  The sink in our kitchen is the same way which is even worse since hot water is needed more in the kitchen than in the bathroom sink.  I have made the mistake so often that I do not even try to get hot water anymore.  I simply do not care anymore.

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #4

Bad Design #4: TV with no remote

This is my TV.  There is noting wrong with the TV itself.  The problem lies with what it did not come with.  A remote.  I checked the manual and there was no mistake, this model simply does not come with a remote.  The remote in the picture is a cheap universal one I had to buy separately, but guess what?  It does not work on the TV.  I have been able to connect the remote to my roommate's TV's, so there is no problem with the universal remote.  A TV without a remote is just a large monitor.  That is all I use it for which is a real shame.  I have thought about buying a more expensive universal remote, but I haven't in fear that it would be a waste of money if it does not work with the TV either.  I now hate this brand and will never buy anything from them again.  No they did not say there was a remote in the box, but I still feel cheated.  It is commonly assumed that all TV's should come with a remote.  The idea that a brand new TV could be bought without one would have never crossed my mind if I had not bought this TV. 

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #3

Bad Design #3: Garage Door Opener

This is my garage door opener.  It has a single button to add new garage door signal transmitters(remotes) so that they will open the garage door.  The downfall? The same button also clears all transmitters currently known by the garage door opener(receiver) if held too long.  When I was connecting my remote, I read the first line of the instructions that say press and HOLD the button on the transmitter.  I was not thinking clearly and held the button on the garage door opener instead.  That wiped the other remotes that were already known by the receiver.  This annoyed my roommates since they then had to connect their remotes again.  I have had to connect many wireless devices together such as computer mice or the controllers to an Xbox 360 which built a standard that requires buttons on both devices to be held down.  This presents a problem when the garage door opener design goes against this standard and instead clears its memory when the button is held down.

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #2

Bad Design #2: Passenger Car Door Lock

This is the passenger's door lock in my car.  It  is not intuitive to the first time user.  I can't even count the number of times passengers have gotten stuck in my car because of the lock.  I always have to unlock the doors from the driver's seat when there is a new person in my car for fear of having to awkwardly wait for them to eventually figure it out. The left picture is the door in the locked position and the right is unlocked.  Since my car is rather user unfriendly, I have paid attention to other car's locking mechanisms which mostly unlock after the first time the handle is pulled.  All that is needed to open the door are two pulls. My car does not do that.  The motion to unlock it is also rather unnatural when you do manage to find the small stub that is the lock.  New users shouldn't even try to find it in the dark.

Book Reading #1: Bad Design #1

Bad Design #1: Switch for Power Outlet

This is a light switch that controls a power outlet on the wall.  The outlet is behind the recliner, so you will just have to trust me when I say that the lamp is connected to a normal looking outlet and is controlled by the switch.  This may seem like a great design at first when it is being used properly, but after further analysis it will not seem as so.  When my roommates and I moved into the house the switch appeared to not do anything when switched on or off.  When we attempted to use the outlet, nothing would work in it because the switch happened to be in the off position. Only later did we realize the invisible connection between the switch and outlet by luck. How were we supposed to know?  There was absolutely no visible aid to show that the switch was connected to the outlet, so we assumed it was just a faulty outlet.  We live in an old house, so some things are bound to not work.  Many down falls go through my head when I think of this.  What if we had connected a computer or TV to the outlet when the switch was in the on position?  Every time someone hit the switch, the device would go off potentially damaging it.  There is no other outlets on that side of the room either, so this one outlet effectively forces us to put all our other devices in the other outlet on the opposite side of the room.  Only our lamp may plug into the outlet since it is the only device we want to be controlled by the switch even though there are two plugs like all normal outlets.  The other plug is completely useless.  Who needs two lamps in the same spot?

Book Reading #1: Good Design #5

Good Design #5: Printer and Scanner

This is a printer and scanner that actually works! All I had to do was install the software on my computer and it works perfectly.  The software has a single button to begin scanning with advanced options being secondary.  I have never used them and never had to, but it is nice knowing they are there.  The printing has never failed on me over the three years I have had it which is saying a lot for a printer.  I have always heard or seen horror stories about printers which makes me very great full to have one that I can rely on.  It does require USB plugin, but it only takes seconds to plug it into my laptop and print or scan.  It does exactly what it should do with only a few clicks with the option to go into details.  Even the details are in easy to understand terminology or contain pictures to explain options.  All the buttons on the printer itself are clear and there is a display to display helpful feedback to the user.