Her Code Got Humans on the Moon
I’m surprised I’ve never heard of Margaret Hamilton and what she was able to accomplish. With all the hardware (punching holes in stacks, hardwired, and indestructible memory, etc) and barely established software, Margaret was able to create an entire industry with her colleagues. The point about how Margaret wanted to extra features that could handle error was interesting. The way it was explained in the article, it seems like the P01 button was unnecessary, so I didn’t really understand why it was there in the first place if all it did was erase data which preventing the astronauts from getting back home. All in all, the main focus of this article seems to focus on how a women engineer was able to revolutionize a whole new industry.
“Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better”
I’ve realized that attractive things work better, but I’ve never looked or realized how that might be. What Norman claims about how being in a better positive state can result in people thinking of better solutions to use a product makes a lot of sense to me. Whenever someone is anxious or mad, they seem to not think about other solutions and instead continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect something to be different. When a design is unattractive, it can possibly put someone in a bad mood, which results in them not figuring out how to use something.
I thought the idea of using sound to break focus was very interesting because I never realized that it actually works (calling “fire” to get someone to notice that something bad is happening, having buzzing noises once something bad happens). I think these are all great ideas to get someone out of the negative affect.
Overall, from this reading, I feel more confused about how to create better designs since there’s so many aspects that I have to keep in mind. All the emotions that one feels when using a new product can change depending on ones mode makes it difficult to design. Norman says the reflective aspect is the hardest to work with especially since it prolongs with time. The visceral and behavioral levels are about the present, but the reflective one stretches into the future.