Norman’s ‘Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better’ was a great complimentary work to his ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ that we previously read this semester. A perspective that may seem contrasting was presented yet upon a closer look it becomes apparent that it is not an opposition to his previous work but a build up. Both the works tie in together to create the full picture of what the essential elements of design are. After reading his previous work, I’d say I definitely increased my focus and attention on functionality and usability in my work without considering the fact that aesthetics wen hand in hand with them. A work that is appealing to look at is one that encourages attention and engagement with it, as human nature is to be driven by aesthetics and visuals, sometimes even beyond usability. Though that should not take away attention from the importance of usability, and that is why the puzzle is incomplete without the pieces provided by the previous work by Norman.
This work particularly brought to my attention the importance of positive affect in encouraging creativity and breadth of thinking when it comes to design and got me thinking of how I can contextualize this to my upcoming projects. Part of creative interactive art is to create works that encourage exploration of the themes and functionalities of a given work, and the achieve this desired effect while usability is essential to ensure that the users have guidance to what they need to do, it is as important to focus on aesthetics to encourage this exploration of the usability of the work. While the importance of positive affect is undoubtedly present in most designs, I’d say it’s importance is exceptionally present in the design of interactive art works and projects. Therefore, the discussion of the intersection of usability and aesthetic is an important one to present in the beginning stages of the design journey to have a foundation that is strong in both aspects. Though, I do believe that in certain cases usability might prove to be more essential to a project or vise versa due to the nature of the situation.
Further, McMillan’s ‘Her Code Got Humans on the Moon’ about the programmer Margret Hamilton was an inspiring work of the discussion of the career beginnings of a women that navigated her way through the field of software engineer back in it’s initial appearance. Beyond her impressive feat reading the work was interesting dive into the world of programming and engineering before it became what we know it today. The method of punching holes in stacks of punch cards to be sent to guide the threading of copper wires into magnetic rings was a clear indication of the significant progress in the field of software engineering. In particular, the lack of urgency of the use of error-checking code was another aspect that is extremely contrasting to today’s practiced with error-checking becoming a central part of today’s programming. Most systems now are responsible to the functions of so many everyday tasks and manage the flow of large amounts of data, which is why they cannot afford to face errors. Though, the article made it clear that mistakes such as the ones that happened with the Apollo were necessary to understand the importance of such functionalities. Which revealed the importance of the work that was being done by Hamilton and the rest of the team at the time to the foundation of today’s software engineering industry.