After reading chapter one of the book entitled “The Design of Everyday Things”, I found myself agreeing with the main argument that the author makes in his book. In this book, the author talks about what makes a good design. I think the most important argument he makes is that the two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding. Discoverability indicates that the user should be able to figure out what actions are possible and how to perform them and understanding indicates what all functions mean and how the product is supposed to be used. I agree with him that discoverability and understanding are the key features of what makes a good design. I also believe that a design is called “good” when it is intuitive whereas we could figure out how to use the object and all the purpose of it at first glance.
I agree with the author in his argument about how we are so “machine-centered” instead of being “human-centered”.When the user is not able to use a machine properly, we often tend to blame the user for not being able to figure out how to use the machine instead of thinking about the machine as “poorly designed.” This machine-centered mindset is something that I also noticed in my surroundings. I also believe that this is the mindset of the engineers who build and design the machines. I find some machines very complicated to use even with the user’s guide. Sometimes, I think the machines are too focused on the “technical requirements” that they forget to consider human behavior. I find it quite ironic that machines that are built for people fail to consider the “people”.
Then, I came to think that this might be the paradox of technology- as it is more developed to offer more technological benefits to the users, the more it becomes difficult to use. Technology can simplify yet complicate our lives. This idea made me think that one of the most concerning challenges to the designers would be how they should balance the desire for more developed technologies and functions with the need for simple and human-centered design. As the author argues, the more the technology develops and the machines become multifunctional, the more the machine is prone to make the users become overwhelmed and frustrated. In a way, I think that it is the job of the designers to make complicated things look “simple and easy” to use.
Also, I thought that a “good design” that satisfies everyone becomes harder to achieve as the machines add more functions. And I thought that a good design might be something “subjective” instead of “objective”. As the author says, what a person finds intuitive is based on that person’s experience. To someone who is used to technology and machines, a newly-built machine might seem to be very intuitive and user-friendly even without reading the user’s guide, but the machine might seem to be “poorly designed” for someone who is not familiar with the machines. Perhaps, to the engineers who are so used to all that logic and orders of machines, the machines that the public perceived to be “poorly designed” might have been intuitive. Likewise, when the machines get more complicated, while there might be a design that the “majority” can satisfy, I think there might not be a design that “everyone” can satisfy.
Overall, I truly found the reading very interesting and engaging. Also, the reading made me reconsider what a good design is. After all, this reading made me think that a good design is a design that is intuitive and that a good design is subjective based on the experience of the users as what a person thinks of as intuitive differs from the person’s prior knowledge and experience.