What stood out to me in both readings was how they started off with what seemed like simple, everyday stories, but ended up conveying something much deeper. It reminded me of those stories given in TedTalks or podcasts that sound ordinary at first, until the speaker reveals the real lesson behind it.
For example, “Her Code Got Humans on the Moon” wasn’t just about the perseverance of Margaret Hamilton, but about the process that led her to help with the success of the Apollo’s mission; how she build a code to anticipate human error to prevent what could have been a major accident. That shifted how I think about programming, it’s not just about building that works, but planning for when things go south.
In Norman’s “Emotion & Design: Attractive Things Work better”, the example of the mugs seemed simple too, but it lead a much more important point too: just how function and aesthetics aren’t separate, Affect and cognition work together rather than against each other when it comes to processing information in a system, despite their difference functions and parameters.
Overall, both texts made me more aware that behind things we experience everyday, whether it is when we are programming or designing something to enhance its function or reduce “irrelevancies”, there are consequential decisions, intentions, and values that beyond the surface of what we see.
