Chapter 1 of The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman poses interesting and crucial observations about the design of our everyday objects, machines, and other utensils. When Norman described the example of bad design with the story about his friend being trapped between doors, I remembered of a similar experience I once faced. After moving to central Europe from Ukraine, I did yet realize that the design of doors in this area of Europe was significantly different than that in Ukraine. Here, doors had handles only on the inside and a dysfunctional knob on the outside. When I an apartment building in Slovakia, I was confused why do all the doors have useless knobs if they don’t even turn. I later learned that this design choice was mainly for ‘safety purposes.’ Still didn’t stop me from accidentally locking myself out of the apartment, even with the door unlocked.
I believe that the points Norman makes in the first chapter are precisely how poor design choice leads to many failures and mistakes. Even recently, I had bought swimming goggles, and accidentally ruined them by rubbing the inside surface. I later read the instructions where it said not to do so. I believe the design of everyday things can be so much better, exactly like Norman proposes, and that it is perhaps our human nature to assume other think like us to design things in a way that we might understand, but others might find challenging. Just like Norman’s example with how engineers think about the things they create, they assume things logically, which is not the case for all people, and thus poor design choices are made. They might not necessarily be poor in functionality, but it is often difficult for people to understand the exact functions if the design is unclear. Overall I believe Norman makes valid arguments as to why the design of everyday things could be so much better.