While reading the chapter I really enjoyed how conversational it felt. Instead of overwhelming me with a bunch of theories, the author used stories about everyday things that included confusing doors, and the hotel sink that he couldn’t figure out how to drain. I felt like those examples were funny and lighthearted but at the same time they made his ideas much easier to understand. Before reading this, I honestly thought that if I could not understand how to use something, it was probably just my fault. Something that drives me crazy is when I click a button on a website, and nothing happens, so I don’t know if my click actually worked or not. This could be improved by giving immediate feedback, like changing the button or showing a loading symbol. Norman made me realise that sometimes the design itself is failing to communicate with the user. The quote that really stuck with me was, “profound ideas are always obvious once they are understood.” This really emphasised how good design can feel obvious even though a lot of thought goes into making it that way. The whole point is for it to look effortless and feel like it’s easy to apply, in the users point of view.
I wanted to connect this to my assignments that I’ve been doing on P5, I realise that I usually focus a lot on aesthetics, like colors, fonts, and how the layout looks like overall. Now I am thinking more about whether someone opening my project for the first time would actually know what to do. Norman explains that good designs should communicate what actions are possible and how to perform them. That made me really focus on how I want my assignment this week (and the rest of the weeks) to be shown. I want my instructions and interactive elements to feel natural instead of making the user guess. This reading changed how I think about design because now I see that the visual part isn’t always the most important part, even though it’s the first thing you see, it’s still needs to be understandable in order for the experience to be clear.