Tuesday, September 30, 2008

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.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

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!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

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.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

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.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

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.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

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.