The last post

1. After this class, design would still be a big part of my life. When I look at a building, I would think of all the design elements and what makes it beautiful and what does not. Learning about design gives me a whole other perspective in viewing everyday things around me. I used to only admire the aesthetics of the design but now I look deeper and find the functional part of the design as well.

2. My advice to FY students after the class is over is that whatever you do, always give yourself enough time to do it, don't procrastinate. College is a place for you to re-identify yourself, you can be whatever you want to be, so don't be afraid to participate in discussions and do open yourself to new ideas.

3. My advice to the student who enrolled in this seminar is to make sure to do the readings, do the work and participate and you will do fine.

Redesign K

1. Tentative thesis: Hot Spot shuttle is vital transportation system for Kalamazoo students, therefore it is important to have Hot Spot shuttles back.
2. Constraints that I plan to address in my analysis are financial problems. The cost of running Hot Spot shuttle are gas prices, van rental and driver wages. The trigger point is students need transportation to get around the school.
3. The four class readings:

• The ten faces of innovation
• City, The design of spaces
• Emotional Design
• Ch 9, Product, Services and Branding Strategies
• Third places
  

4. "One of the things we often do at IDEO when collaborating with client companies on a new concept is to help them map out their customer's journey...the journey nearly always has more steps than people first imagine. For example, the journey of the car buying experience often has lots of anxiety inducing steps, with plenty of opportunities to stray off the desired path. "
-use this to prove that transportation is a journey, and by providing hot spot, it can improve and reduce lots of anxiety inducing steps of traveling.
"Think about travel and leisure, for example, where some of the most memorable, immersive experiences from a day at a relaxing spa to an evening at a hot nightclub--not only incorporate visual sensations but also make optimum use of sound, incorporate visual sensations but also make optimum use of sound, incorporate tactile sensations, and blend in the right taste and smells."

Campus Analysis: Kzoo Library

1. I observed Upton Library 3rd floor in Kalamazoo College. The purpose of the library is to provide a public space for K students and everyone to do work, study and research. I made my observations on Sunday afternoon.
2.
a. The area is rather big. When you first walk up the beautiful stairs made with glass holders you see sofas and tables with chairs in front of you. The bathrooms and classrooms are located in the front as well. Behind the stairs are computers, and desks. The color of the library is mostly brown, because the wooden shelves are everywhere in the third floor.
b. Seating is very available. Library closes at 2am. Wooden chairs, sofas (group work), Computer chairs, and metal chairs for classrooms.
c. There are moderate amount of people. The 3rd is about 2/3 full of people but there are always room in the library because the 3rd floor has the least people out of all the three floors.
d. The floors are carpeted in zigzag lines on dark brown, orange and blue.
e. The sound level overall is quiet. Each area has different level of quietness. For example, the computer areas are the most nosiness because people type and they interact the most.
f. The material is mainly made of wood. ex: shelves and tables are wood.

3. The library projects a comfortable and spacious workable space with very few distractions. It is very spacious. There are more girls than boys in the third floor. The chairs all have a back seat and are all movable. There are a comfort distance for sitting. There is a idea of usefulness for everybody because there are water fountain, elevator and bathroom for the handicap. Also, the location of the library is very centered other other buildings and it's near the road. The library is very easy to spot.
4. People interact by whispering in the computer area. Quiet conversations in the tables.
5. I find it interesting that each area has different level of quietness and others are for different functions (reading, typing, and writing). For example, the areas near the window are more secluded and quiet.

Principles of Marketing

1. Design affects everything of marketing. For example, products and service are created as a experience for consumers, so they remember the brand as good. The most important elements are product and service production, type of marketing (person, place, ideas), branding, packaging, and customer service.

2. Branding and marketing involves promoting a good reputation for the company. Tom Kelley's design of experiences were used often in developing a brand. For example, companies try to form touch points that gives customers personal experience for brands. Personal experience such as spreading by the word of mouth, and talking to a sales clerk.

3. The brand K is noticeably to represent Kalamazoo. K letters usually come in orange colors with black background which can be seen really far away. The brand can be found in coffee mugs in Bigby's. Also, the hoodies and shirts have K written all over it. The bookstore has a lot of "K" in notebooks, pencils, umbrellas (colorful), and many more. Also the school signs are labeled K as well. Design reinforce K's brand because it is seen everywhere in the campus.

The experience architect by Tom Kelley

1. The important points in the article is that design is have to physical but can be a experience. Experiences engages customers' senses and help them remember what a great time they had. Experience architects find ways to turn ordinary into something special. They turn commodity into an easier to use product. Finding the trigger points can make your business better than all your competitors.

2. Design of experiences and design of consumer products are similar because they focus on what customers want, and how to make their life easier. However, it is also different because an experience is a memory unless products which are physical.

3. I would design a karaoke party with 100 dollars. Everybody would be welcome to join and people can sing, eat and socialize with other people. I would need to burrow a lounge from a the college, some karaoke system.

Wikipedia article rejected

Review is On Hold.

A reviewer has looked at this submission, but input from the contributor and/or other editors is needed before this article can be created. The reviewer left the following comment:

I'm sorry, but your article appears to read more like an advertisement than an entry in an encyclopedia. If you still feel that this subject is appropriate for Wikipedia, please rewrite your proposed article in the form of an encyclopedia entry. Encyclopedia entries should be written from a neutral point of view, and should refer to a range of published, verifiable sources, not just to materials produced by the creator of the item being discussed.

If the issues are not resolved within 24 hours, this request may be declined. If this happens the request can be resubmitted later.

The 3rd place by Ellen Santasiero

1. Dr. Oldenburg means a informal public gathering place that is not home nor work he talks about the third place. Examples of third places are cafes, coffeehouses, health spas and soda fountains.

2. The most important design element of a third place is that it should make the visitor feel comfortable (homely) . The tone should be inviting, friendly, and upbeat. The space should be small. There should be a lot of comfortable seating such as sofas, and chairs. Entertainment is a bonus. People should also feel no obligation to stay, they may leave whenever they want.

3. The cavern can be a potentially successful third place. It has warm and inviting atmosphere. There are comfortable sofas all around the room. There are tea and cookies in the main room. Places to improve it is to form more events that invite students into going to the cavern. There is not enough people in the cavern to make it a successful third place.

City by William Whyte

1. The author's key points in this chapter is that there are guidelines to design of spaces. For example, A good space should fulfill the customer's demands. Supply creates demands. The best used places should have women because women sensitive to annoyance. People tend to sit where there are places to sit. Sitting guidelines are needed for height, distance, length, and space. Chairs have mobility. It gives people the sense of choice and freedom to move it around. The amount of seating in the plaza is also very important.

2. Urban space designs and consumer product designs are all people centered. Both designs have to focused on people and how the people interact with the space and product. The difference is that urban space designs focus more on attracting people to certain areas.

3. Analyzing the public space:

• Is there are lot of women?
• Location
• is the place bigger than 3 blocks?
• Is there a sense of enclosure?
• Amount of seating?
• Are the seating heights 17-18 inches?
• Plazas are sunken? (no more than 3 feet)
• Are there benches? (length requirement)
• Are there movable chairs?
  

Downtown Kalamazoo

1. Downtown Kalamazoo is very outdated. The atmosphere is very quiet and clean. The road have brick pavers. The street looks shabby and the roads are narrow. Past the Radisson hotel the design is different. There are no road traffic and no roads for cars. The gallery benches arranged in square surrounded by trees. The benches are facing the restaurants. I like the location of Downtown Kalamazoo, it is in the safe central area. However, I dislike the lack of varieties in the store. The stores are marketed to middle class age people.

Some appealing stores I found are climb kzoo, and gift shop. Some unappealing stores I found are uninviting Botiques, and resturants. I dislike the strong mismatch of retailors. The library, church, Radisson Hotel, banks, theatre and museums attract people to the area.

Stores around the area are galleries, tailoring, retail, coffee, optical, and unappealing vacancy. There is a Burnharm and Flower Financial building that has a glass wall that reflects all the stores across from it, it is a attraction. Also the route brings people to the kalamazoo airport.

2.

• Since there are so many vacancy, government should loan stores to open more retail stores for the college students. Book stores, popular retail clothing store, and cafes should be built in the kalamazoo mall because there are the Kalamazoo college and WMU students.
• Put more signs in Burdicks Street. I had to ask a woman where Bucdicks street was, when I was on the street already. There are not enough street signs.
• Do not place restaurants next to clothing stores. I saw many restaurants and clothing located next to each other.

3. "Clothing stores, for example, should never be located next to restaurants. For some reason, the smell of food hurts clothing sales."-Robert Gibbs

It relates because Kalamazoo Downtown have restaurants and retail stores mix together. They should separate the stores and restaurants, it is one of the basic rules.

What Main St. Can Learn From the Mall by Steven Lagerfeld

1. Criteria to evaluate Main St.

• location of benches: too many loiters and attractive teenagers sitting on the benches will scare off shoppers.
  
• location of stores: Are the restaurants next to the retail stores?
• color of trash cans and newspaper.
• are shop windows and signs visible?
• Any distractions such as Victorian street lamps, the expensive trash cans, and granite paving stones.
• The texture of the side walk. Will they be too hard to clean?
• Are there enough securities to make the shoppers feel safe.
  
• Are the sidewalks grimy?
• Is there a left turn rule?
• Is Main st. a vital city street?
• Does Main St. have variety of stores?

2. I do not think Main Street should be a mall because strip shopping centers, suburban market, big box retailers and power centers are dominating malls. It just proves that the idea of a small town shopping center works. People want change, something that malls cannot offer because their stores all the same chain stores. Besides that, people enjoy a nice walk while shopping for merchandise. However, Main St. should follow the trends and designs that malls used to turn small downtown into a shopping machine.

3. Checklist

1. left turn rule
2. location of benches, trees, and trash cans placed in the right places
3. does the town have at least 200000 sq ft of retail space.
4. main-main intersection
5. impression of parking lot

I find the left turn rule and the first impression of parking lot most important.

Retail Analysis

1. I observed a store called Gazelle Sports located in Downtown. They market to young adults interested in brands and middle aged people who play sports.

2.
a. The store entrance is very plain, it had a few banners with name of the store and some clothes hanging outside the glass window.

b. Gazelle Sports play old type of music. Their music is not loud.

c. The merchandises are displayed in hangers, separated by brands.

d. The floors are carpeted in dark gray colors.

e. They have yellow signs of brands of clothing (Nike, North Face, Adidas).

f. In the cashier area, there is a huge yellow sign with quotes about shopping in Gazelle right on top of the counter.

3. The image the business is trying to sports can be fashionable. Their sporting clothes have different colors and styles that you cannot find in another store.

4. Customers found the various elements of the store's design intriguing. People there are very interested in the clothing and the bright signs that label what brand they are.

5. I find interesting that the colors of all the signs are green, and yellow. They try to promote nature and how by playing sports, you will be outside enjoying nature. Also, Gazelle placed all their men clothing in the right because of the invariant right principle. Gazelle did not want to confuse the male customers when the first thing they see is women clothing. The fitting room was located all the way in the back of the left corner. It took a lot of thing to look for it, therefore it manipulates customers to shop around their store longer. All the sports items are located in the back as well.

The Science of Shopping

1. Key points in this article are manipulation from retail stores by main techniques like invariant right, men and women's differences, typing, and butt brush theory. Stores learn to put important things in the right because people always look right when they enter stores. Retailers also understand that men and women are very different creatures when it comes to shopping. For example, women shop longer or have more patience than men. With this knowledge, men's clothing are always in front so they don't get confused with the wrong sex clothing. Another way stores get people to purchase items are the using the Typing method. Typing is a market research based on questionaires that predict the kind of products people buy. Typing is highly accurate. Stores also design enough space in aisle for women's product because according to the butt brush theory, women are very sensitive back there.

2. I feel I am very influenced by the store's design because I would not walk into a store if the outside if the store looks bad. I judge the store just from looking at the store's design. I am very influenced by store design because I always find myself buying items I don't really need but I end up buying it because of the marketing techniques that used on me.

3. List to analyze retail store
Decompression Zone
Butt Brush Theory
Men and Women's sales location
Right and Left Invariant
Location of the store (not near banks)
Downshift factor
The ratio of products brought for every customer
Image or the message

Isn't it Iconic? by Stacy King Gordon

1. Packaging is important when consumers buy products depending on their packaging design. When I chose to buy a bottle of shampoo, I was debating between two types of organic shampoos. A brand call Organix had an oval shaped with nice text and colors. The other brand called Giovanni had a slim rectangular shape made of clear plastic material. I decided to choose Organix because the packaging design was more appealing.

2. Animal crackers, Poland Spring, Tropicana Orange Juice, Capri Sun, Kool Aid, and McDonalds Happy Meal are examples of iconic packaging.

3. A usability issue is the durability of the product and the behavioral aspect of the packaging design. An example of good packaging from a usability perspective is the Coca Cola plastic bottle. These bottles can be recapped after opening to drink later. An example of a bad packaging is the Coca Cola cans because once you open it, you have to drink it all at once.

Biggest Mistakes in Web Design By Vincent Flanders

1. The reading relate to the concept of user-focused design that we have discussed in class because every important points Vincent Flanders involves the needs of the website viewers. For instance, Vincent explains that "Nobody cares about you and you web site", people only visit the website because they need information, need to make a donation, need entertainment and need too be part of the community. The concept of user-focused design often lead to bad web site designs or what the author call it, websites that suck. There are too many website designers that misuse flash, graphics, and JavaScript. People put unnecessary applications that make the readers confused and lost. The idea of concept of user focused design is very much similar to Norman's everyday things because the major point is that designers are too focused on themselves and not focused on the common people's needs.

2. There are many points in the article that I found important. For example, the less than four second rule states that it should only take the reader 4 seconds to figure you whole web site layout and how to use it. If they are still trying to figure it out after 4 seconds, then your web site is failure. Another point is having good navigation on the site. Navigation should be simple and easy to be seen and used on the web page. There should not be broken links or no links back to the homepage. The point I felt most important was whether or not the site has heroin content. As Flanders explained, if the site has addicting contents, it does not matter how bad the design is because people will see visit the site.

3. My list of design factors for a webpage would be Content, Visual Attractiveness, and Organization. The website's content serves the whole purpose of the site. It is ham in the hamburger. If the content is not good enough, everything else fails. The visual design or visceral should be important because the first thing that comes to the reader's mind when they enter the site is whether the site looks nice. Finally, the web page should be organized. The navigation keys should be easy to find and easy to access. The site's text can be readed and the background is not too flashy. An organized site allows the reader to figure out how to use the site within 4 seconds.

Know It all by Stacy Schiff

1. The author's main point is to show the origin of Wikipedia from 2001's progress to current time. The author stressed the point that Wikipedia is not a reliable source because it can be edited by a 5 year old.

2. "The how-to entries represent territory that the encyclopedia has not claimed since the eighteenth century. You could cure a toothache or make snowshoes using the original Britannica, of 1768-71. (You could also imbibe a lot of prejudice and superstition. The entry on Women has just six words: "The female of man. See HOMO.") If you look up "coffee preparation" on Wikipedia, you will find you way, via the entry on Espresso, to a piece on types of espresso machines, which you will want to consult before buying."

The evidence Stacy Schiff has provided was very effective. If you typed "women" on Britannica and typing "coffee" preparation on Wikipedia we can see the big difference. Wikipedia provides so much more content than Britannica when searching for keywords.

3. The Wikipedia and Britannica website design is very different from each other. The Wikipedia design has a search word for the whole layout, but Britannica shows only one-fourth of the layout, while the rest of the page is covered with advertisement. Wikipedia is also easy to use because when you type in a keyword in the search bar, Wikipedia lists the matches from most relevant to irrelevant, but Britannica gives you a list of options to choose from. Britannica has had more buttons on the page and advertisement. Wikipedia has history and additional related topic to the search word, unlike Britannica, which only shows a brief definition of the word.

Simplicity vs Complexity

1. Visceral Design, Behavioral Design, and Reflective Design contributes to simplicity/complexity because designers use these designs to help create a simple and complex appeal towards consumers. Designers purposely make their products viscerally more simple to attract consumers. For the behavioral aspect of products, designers create less controls and functions to show simplicity. Finally, designers should have a reflective design, sending a message to the people that the product is very simple.

2. "I know the example of a phone was used often, but this past summer I worked as a temporary office administrator in a small environmental engineering office where I lived. My main responsibility was to answer the phone, and I often had difficulties transferring and holding calls that came in. The worst experience was when I accidentally called someone and thought that they had called me. That led to an awkward exchange...
The design of the phone was too complicated. I could not remember all the different combination of buttons that I needed to transfer, hold, and call out. Like Norman said, there were too many functions."-Hannah

“That’s the design challenge- to discover real needs that even the people who need them cannot yet articulate.”
This statement by Norman fascinates me. Everyday items that we consider essential are at one time not available or considered superfluous. A perfect example is the cell phone. Even when the concept was introduced most consumers did not respond very positively to it. However, now every where you go you can find someone talking on their phone. It just shows how innovative and persistent designers need to be.''-Liz

From reading Hannah and Liz's answers, I discovered that people do not know what they want from designers. Phones with many functions may sound attractive to consumers, but most of the time, consumers cannot describe what they want. Therefore, designers have to be innovative and be able to think about what the people want.

Simplicity is highly overrated by Donald Norman

1. I bought the Iriver clix over iPod because the complexity made it more desirable. The clix had a radio, recorder, video player, text reader, alarm clock, games, pod cast, sound system, and a timer. When I chose the clix, the iPod had less functionality then it did two years ago.

2. Complexity is justified when the features are popular and common. For example, a car is justified to have many controls because when you are driving you want to feel powerful. People expect that cars have radios, a cup holders, automatic systems , and a GPS systems.
Simplicity is most important after the product is purchased because if it is simple, then consumers will not be frustrated and confused when using the product.






3.
"Simplicity is only important in terms of use. If you bring a cellular phone without any features, no one will buy. Nowadays, a camera, music player, and internet is standard for any phone. The complexity is needed, but the ease of use is highly appreciated."-Dion

I find Dion's opinion very interesting because I agree with him. There seem to be a paradox when it comes to purchasing any type of cellular phone. Americans want simplicity but would never purchase a cellphone that does not have complex features.

Emotional Design Part II by Donald Norman

1. "Swatch is famous for transforming the watch into a fashion statement, arguing that people should own as many watches as ties, or shoes, or even shirts. You should change your watch, they proclaimed, to match mood, activity, or even the time of day. The executive team of Swatch patiently tried to explain this to us: Yes, the watch mechanism had to be inexpensive, yet of high quality and reliable (and we were very impressed by our tour of their completely automated manufacturing facilities), but the real opportunities lay in exploiting the face and body of the watch...."

This passage was fascinating because I own a Swatch watch myself. Swatch watches appeal to me because of it's attractively thin and cleverly designed. This passage intrigued me because I never knew that Swatches are an emotions company. Swatches focus on promoting its reflective design by giving a message to the consumers that their watch is trendy. I can agree with this passage that the main reason why I purchased my watch was because it was a simply beautiful time-telling watch.

2. Visceral Design, Behavioral Design and Reflective Design are very useful to me. Designs are everywhere in the world. Understanding how design works can be helpful in many ways. For example, if you were customer shopping at Macy's for a jacket, you might see scarves and socks located right next to jackets. As a person who understand Visceral Design, you know you are unconsciously being convinced to buy scarves and socks as well. Therefore, it would be difficult for you to fall into the trap of shopping for extra clothes that you do not need. Then, a salesman would not be able to persuade you into buying more clothes. However, if you were a lost customer you are more likely to buy clothes from a assisting salesman. In addition, I can use these three concepts as a future reference for marketing and business.

Behavioral Design and Reflective Design makes the categories very clear and understandable. However, Visceral Design is a little confusing. Visual Design instead of Visceral Design would have made it a better word choice because more people understand the definition of visual.

3. The designer can choose whether to use Visceral Design, Behavioral Design or Reflective Design in making more profit in sales. Sometimes a product's marketing is good because they sell products that use Visceral Design instead of the usual Behavioral Design. For example, many water bottles now are designed as an art. People prefer a nicely designed water bottle over a Poland Spring water bottle even when they have to pay more for it.
Products with good marketing can be more visceral, behavioral, or reflective depending on how the company chooses to advertise it. Products can have all three designs if the company succeeds in its advertisement and design.

Emotional Design By Donald Norman

1. The design of a product can impulse consumers into buying the product. There are three levels of design which can trigger people's emotion, visceral, behavioral and reflective.
The visceral level origins from environmental signals that attract humans due to the bright colors. For instance, some water bottle companies have made water into art by giving them an appealing shape with intriguing, bright colors. The water bottles give the consumers a message that they must buy this product. People purchase this overly priced bottle because of its visceral design.
In behavioral design, functionality is the first priority. A product must have functionality or the design falls apart. It is often difficult to discover what this functionality should be because it is hard to find out what people need, since people are not aware of their needs. Surveys, will not work, therefore designers would have to observe them in their natural environment.
Reflective design focuses on memories that the product evokes. Designers concentrate more on design than functionality. Take for example, the swatch. It is an emotion's company. They make watches into fashion statements. Swatches are watches that tell more than time. The reason is simple, beauty comes from the reflective level; therefore people usually prefer asthetically pleasing designs as opposed to the norm.

2. Chapter 3 (emotional design) introduce new topics on design. The "Design of Everyday Things" focus on all Behavioral levels of design, while Chapter 3 elaborates on Visceral and Reflective designs. Norman explains the strategies that businesses use to convince consumers in purchasing products. In "Design of Everyday Things", Norman concentrates more on the usage issue of products.

3. I have brought a Fuji water bottle for 4 dollars in a grocery store. My main reason for choosing it over Poland Springs is because the visceral design of the bottle. It is rectangularly shaped and it has beautiful bottle label of the forest flowers all over it. As soon as I had a glimpsed of the Fuji bottle, I knew I wanted to buy it. Although the water itself contains more oxygen in it than a Poland Spring water bottle persay, I bought the Fuji water bottle because I wanted to use the bottle for decorations.

My Airforce One sneakers is a really good example of Behavioral Design. I've used it for four years and I am still wearing it to school. The sneakers are black so they do not get dirty as quick as other colored sneakers. In addition, the heels are made of rubbers so it does not slid off when walking slippery floors. The shoes are comfortable and easy to wear.

A reflective design would be my swatch watch. It is very thin and silver color. The watch is very trendy and useful at the same time. There are numbers labeled on the watch so it's easy to read the time. The flowery designs are asthetically pleasing. It has warranty and it is durable. It is a success because swatch watches are more than a watch that tells time because it is a fashion statement!

The Design of Everyday Things Part II

1. "something that happens right after an action appears to be caused by that action. Touch a computer terminal just when it fails, and you apt to believe that you caused the failure, even though the failure and your action were related only by coincidence. Such false causality is the basis for much superstitution. Many of the peculiar behaviors of people using computer system or complex household appliances result from such false coincidences. When an action has no apparent result, you may conclude that the action was ineffective. So you repeat it. In earlier days, when computer word processors did not always show the results of their operations, people would sometimes attempt to change their manuscript, but the lack of visible effect from each action would make them think that their commands had not been executed, so they would repeat the commands, sometimes over and over, to their later astonishment and regret..."

-Donald Norman

This passage was most interesting to me because I have experienced this situation many times. For instance, I often find myself clicking on the same computer key for the hundredth time after failing each time I did it. From reading this brief passage I had a quick light bulb moment that "wow, maybe all this time the problem was not me but the stupid design". The passage related and connected to me the most out of the whole chapter. It was like a sudden enlightment to understanding the reasoning of how a failed action may not be caused by oneself but maybe by the design of the computer.

2. The book influence designers today because bad designs are still an issue. For example, there are still phones with many useless features that people do not understand how to use. Since people spend money buying poorly designed products, companies will continue to mass produce them. Another reason can be that designers may overlook their "fantastic" product when looking for reviews and responses.

3. A good product should have certain factors to be evaluated. Visibility is a factor we should use to evaluate a good product. There should be international signs and natural clues that assist us when operating a product. Poor instructions should not be tolerated. Every product must have clear and easy instructions that we can all understand. The right things should be seen with no problems; that way we can understand the device.

Good feedback of the product should not be forgotten. The best way to evaluate a product is by recieving response from the consumers. Materials are a factor too. If there are too many affordance for the material, it can be confusing for us to determine the right way to use it. The constraints on a product will limit the possible ways to use it; therefore it can be a good factor for evaluation.

The conceptual model of the design should be obvious. There should not be too many controls and functions where there are no obvious relationship. The product's design should form mental models or models people are accustomed to and familiar with. Mapping is as necessary as conceptual models when evaluating a product because that way, there is no relationship between the user's intention and the result. The product would be confusing and controls would be useless. Setting factors to evaluate products can set guildlines for better designs.

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

1. The author's key points in this chapter is that consumers tend to purchase goods with many useful functions and designs, but would not know how to use it due to its complications. Donald Norman explains that many everyday things are poorly designed. The three problems that consumers deal with are visibility, mapping, and conceptual model. There should be hints or images to how to operate things such as doors as well as having a multi-use control. Also, people already have a fixed idea on how an object should be used.
Many everyday things are lacking feedback. Consumers are impressed by the features that lured into purchasing it. When a person brings an item home, they realized that it is difficult to use. This is because a good design should never have a control with more than one action.

2. An object I had difficulty using was my watch. My watch has one knob but many features. To change the time, I had to pull the knob and turn it clockwise or counterclockwise. However, if I want to set my alarm clock I have to pull the knob twice and turn it clockwise or counterclockwise and then push the knob back in. The difficulty of mt watch arises from the Mapping principle. One control accounts for two settings. I often find myself pulling the knob too hard and end up setting an alarm clock instead of changing the time. Visibility is also an issue because I cannot figure out whether I have pulled once or pulled twice on my knob, until I have noticed the hands move.

3. The iPod has good visibility. Each button had a play, stop, pause, forward, and back sign. The scrolls were naturally interpreted that as your fingers shift right the songs will go down the list and vice versa. Another natural signal was the faster you scroll around the scrolling wheel the faster the speed will accelerate.
The mapping of the iPod is good because the number of actions and the number of controls were very close. Most buttons are one use buttons, and is very similar to electronics.
The conceptual model of the iPod is designed very well because the buttons were simple enough that it constraints a person from using it incorrectly. Therefore, the iPod is well designed and part of the reason for that is because Steve Jobs encouraged many feedback, trials, and revision.

The Perfect Thing by Steven Levy

1.
The iPod was designed to compliment its functions. One of its uses is that it has the ability to fit all pockets. Fadell and Ng used foam boards to create a box that was about the size of a cigarette case. Schiller proposed the scroll wheel in the center of the iPod for its convenience. Since an iPod has the capacity to hold over 1000 songs, a circular wheel used to scroll through the songs would be faster than pressing up and down buttons. The design process of the Menu button was argued that it is necessary to help quicken the search of a song by using it to open a list of options. Another use of the iPod is its ability to only transfer music into the music player, making it one way. Originally the electronic could sync and load songs into the computer, but Jobs' thought that it would be easy for people to steal music from each other.



2.

I would evaluate the "perfect thing" by its memory space (RAM) because this is what makes the iPod better all the other MP3. Another concern is its affordability; the public should be able to spend a certain amount of money buying the product without thinking it is too expensive. The shape is appealing, not too big and not too small. An iPod should look stylish and function well at the same time. Finally, other factors I would think about before buying an iPod would be its popularity and packaging.

3.

I personally would never purchase an iPod. However, it is amazing to have over thousands of songs in a music player that is the size of a credit card. People can easily choose songs when scrolling around the iPod. They also have so many different sizes to choose from and iPod has good advertisement. On the other hand, iPod's rectangular shape feels uncomfortable to hold. The design of the iPod cover is too plain Jane although it comes in different colors. Moreover, the iPod is too overated that the possibility of being robbed is higher than a Creative Zen. In addiction, iPod does not have a recording and am radio function.

Triangle

My favorite design has to be triangle. Every structure has a triangle in it. The tall skyscrapers, famous bridges and even a chair. Triangle is the foundation for every design to work.