“Emotion and Attractive” by Donald A. Norman and “Her Code Got Humans on the Moon- And Invented Software Itself” by Robert McMillan
We were assigned to read two different materials with varying ideas, but both were thought-provoking.
I would like to start with the most influential article about the mother of software engineering- Margaret Hamilton. She is a living example of the phrase “everything is possible”. While reading the text, I immediately thought about the photo of her standing next to the tons of coded papers- Apollo code. The reading material tells more about the background of that photo, showing the first gigantic step toward software engineering. Her dedication to work and the result of her achievements impressed me the most. Imagine writing the code to the system, which gets the humans on the moon and back when no one even had an idea what the software engineering was. Her biography leaves me astonished every time I read it.
Fig. 1. Scene at MIT: Margaret Hamilton’s Apollo code | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Source: margaret-hamilton-mit-apollo-code_0.jpg
Discussing the reading “Emotion and Attractive” by Norman, I would like to say that the reading told the basic things, which are usually overlooked by the designers. In other words, he mentioned such a foundational, yet significant aspect of the design that is neglected in the production of the goods and services. Making a connection with the previous reading “The Psychopathology of Everyday Things”, I would like to suggest that the complexity of the things is part of the “ugliness” of the goods. The point of view of the author is that the aesthetics of the product is more than its facade, including usability, understandability, and easiness along with beauty. However, I think that this focus on aesthetics may vary depending on the context because the things made for emergency situations need to be as simple and as understandable as it is possible, giving less attention to physical appearance, while the things for the occasional use in free time or for professional purposes can give the priority to the aesthetics. Furthermore, I would like to admit that his idea that the beauty of the product stimulates cognitive thinking better could convince me. We tend to put more mental effort into understanding the usage of the thing subconsciously if we find that appealing than non-attractive things. This might vary depending on the mood and the conditions. He gave a well-drawn example of that with the teapots. If you are in a mood and have free time, you would probably go with the most aesthetic teapot even if it’s not the most user-friendly, but if you are in a hurry, the most usable one, even if it’s not the most pleasurable one. Overall, it can be concluded that Norman emphasized the fundamental aspect of the design in clear terms and examples, which resonates with my perspective of the significance of the aesthetics of products.