Response 1: Attractive Things Work Better by Don Norman
What stood out to me the most was Norman’s “heretical” claim that attractive things actually work better. I always thought of usability and beauty as two totally separate things like a tool is either pretty or it’s functional. But the way he explains how positive affect (basically just feeling good) makes us more creative and tolerant of minor glitches really clicked for me. It’s funny how he used to be a “usability bigot” who didn’t even see the point of color screens but now he’s out here admitting he owns teapots just because they’re sculptural art. It made me realize that when I’m happy using a well-designed app or object, I really do find it easier to navigate, even if it has a few flaws.
Response 2: Her Code Got Humans On The Moon by Robert McMillan
The most interesting thing about Margaret Hamilton’s story is how she was essentially one of the guys in a field that didn’t even have a name yet. It’s wild that when the Apollo mission started, software wasn’t even in the budget or the schedule. I loved the detail about her bringing her daughter Lauren to the lab and how a mistake the four year old made while playing actually helped save the Apollo 8 astronauts later on. It shows how Hamilton’s intuition for human error was way ahead of its time, especially since NASA’s higher-ups insisted astronauts were trained to be perfect and wouldn’t make mistakes. She didn’t just write code, she basically invented the rigor of software engineering because she knew that in space, there is zero room for any flops.