Both of this week’s readings are the result of developing a complex relationship between aesthetics, degree of complexity and function. Norman in his readings states that inproving the user experience through design is important as it allows users to ignore the minor flaws and bugs by impressing them with creativity. For example, he states that walking the plank at different heights might seem same, but as the height increases, a person might reconsider that. However, if there are some aesthetic design incorporation, then one might choose to do so either due to aesthetic curiosity. However, initially going through Margaret Hamilton’s reading, even I was quite sure that her view is quite in contrast with Norman, as she focusses majorly on error-free, mission-critical functionality while designing software for the Apollo systems. This is because of the risks involved in her work. At the moon surface, a place unknown to humans, anything could go wrong and total preparation was needed. This became clear when just before landing on the moon, the computer overwhelmed with the many tasks on hand, chose to prioritize the main task, and leave the others.
However, Norman’s approach to adaptability in design based on aesthetics goes well with Hamilton’s approach to adaptability in systems. Norman thinks that an appealing interface makes a product more usable for a wider range of people. Hamilton, on the other hand, worked with NASA on the Apollo program and showed adaptability through strict, modular engineering that could handle unexpected edge cases, like when her daughter made a critical error during testing. These similar and different ideas show that Norman’s ideas about beauty make everyday things easier to use, while Hamilton’s high-stakes setting shows how important it is to build for reliability and test things thoroughly, which is an important quality in and of itself for life-or-death tasks.