Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better
This week’s reading made me laugh a little because it called me out directly. Norman’s idea that attractive things work better really stuck with me, but not because I think they literally work better. It’s because they make us feel better about them. That feeling changes how we treat the object. Case in point: this pink-bow mug I saw online. I would buy it instantly just because it’s cute. But if I actually tried drinking from it, I know the bow handle would probably poke me in the eye. And yet, I still want it.
I would 100% buy this, and it would 100% poke my eye.
It reminded me of how we collect things like stickers or fancy stationery just to admire them and never actually use them. Sometimes, function becomes secondary when something looks good enough. Norman makes the case that beauty improves usability by creating positive emotions, but I think this also raises a bigger question. How far are we willing to let go of functionality just to have something pretty? And when does that stop being design and start becoming decoration? It’s something I want to think about more in my own work. I still want my interactive projects to function well, but maybe it’s okay to prioritize joy and visual pleasure too. Sometimes, looking at something beautiful is the function.
Her Code Got Humans on the Moon
Reading about Margaret Hamilton reminded me why I love creative tech in the first place. She wasn’t just writing code. She was building the foundation of what software could even be. What really stood out to me wasn’t only that she helped put people on the moon, but that she did it at a time when software engineering wasn’t even considered real engineering. She coined the term herself because nobody else was giving it the weight it deserved. That says a lot about the kind of vision she had. She wasn’t just part of the system. She was defining it.
What I found especially inspiring was her mindset around error handling. She didn’t assume the user would always follow instructions perfectly. She designed with failure in mind, and made sure the code could still function under pressure or human error. That’s a mindset I want to carry into my own work, especially when building interactive projects. Not everything needs to be perfect, but it should be ready for the unexpected. That’s not just smart coding, it’s thoughtful design. The user might not always know what to do, but the system should be kind enough to keep going.