Norman Thing

I finished reading the book "The Design of Everyday Things" by Norman, so I wanted to write some short notes to remind me later what I found interesting in the book. These notes do not cover everything mentioned in the book and I might miss some points since I only read it once. However, I can say that reading this book changed the way I see the world, which is strange. Although we live same things everyday, we generally cannot recognise them by ourselves unless we read or hear them from external sources. 

1- It is not our fault! The design has defect.

2- Conceptual models, feedback, constraints, affordance are the principles that a designer should focus on.

3- The Seven Stages of Action:

Forming Goal -> Forming the intention -> Specifying an action -> Executing the action ->
Perceiving the state of the world -> Interpreting the state of the world -> Evaluating the outcome

The greens are for execution while the yellows are for evaluation.

4-  What should be done for a good design?

• Utilise both knowledge in the world and in the head.
• Simplify the structure of tasks (balance depth and width).
• Make things visible: bridge the gap between execution and evaluation.
• Get the mappings right.
• Use the power of constraints (natural and artificial).
• Always consider errors and design for them.
• When all else fails, standardise (arbitrary).

Now, I started to read the book "Plans and Situated Actions" by Suchman.