Category: F2023 – Mang

In the first chapter of The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman delves into our interaction with commonplace items and how the fundamental principles of design shape this interaction. He also explores the concept of design and how everyday objects can create usability problems and frustrations for users. Reading about two of the most important characteristics of good design which are discoverability and understanding made me much more aware of the design of everyday objects that I encounter. Discoverability is about making it clear, often at first glance, what actions are possible with a product or interface. In my experience, a good example of easily discoverable designs that I deal with every day is well-designed mobile apps often have easily recognizable icons and intuitive gestures, enhancing discoverability. Don Norman also discussed a common problem that I faced personally in my first days in the university, which is the confusing doors. Dealing with doors is actually a common example that demonstrates the importance of user experience in the design process.

Another part of the reading that was really interesting is the paradox of technology, especially because it relates to the content of this course. Norman illustrates the trade-off between the convenience that technology brings and the increasing complexity it introduces. This resonates with my experience of using various applications where the initial excitement of features can sometimes be overshadowed by the challenges of mastering them.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Things was quite a fun and informative chapter to read. The author’s descriptions of his experiences with products that have ineffective designs were pretty relatable, which helped me to understand the importance of good design in my mind. The topic of how engineers build products that are overly logical while expecting unrealistic outcomes was also amusing. I have heard so many developers complaining about users because they cannot grasp their interfaces, but they have never stopped to think that not everyone has the same knowledge that they do, or that they have a completely social lack of communication. Worse yet is when some products are so annoying that it feels like the designers behind them did it on purpose. I have seen washing machines that had the most excruciating beeping sounds that had no indication of how to make them stop, and that is precisely what the author talks about when he mentions the problem of too much feedback.

Moreover, I do not think the reading changed any of my beliefs, although it definitely made the importance of psychology and communication in technology more clear to me. However, the concept of mapping could have been more explored in my opinion. For instance, I would have liked to see more examples of good and bad mapping in digital technology, and how we could take into consideration factors such as cultural differences in order to improve mapping.

Don Norman’s observations regarding the design of everyday objects, such as doors, were so interesting for me to read as they raise the issue in technology: engineers and designers sometimes get so caught up in logical thinking that they forget about the end user’s perspective. I liked how this idea can actually relate to what we read last week about Crawford’s idea of “interactivity” as a conversation. It’s almost like technology and users speaking a different language, and this disconnect can lead to a host of problems. In a good conversation, it’s not just about speaking; it’s about listening, understanding, and responding thoughtfully. This same principle applies to human-machine interactions. Users need to “listen” to the machine by deciphering its controls and understanding how it works, while the machine must “listen” to the user’s commands and respond appropriately. When there’s a breakdown in this dialogue, things can quickly go awry.

What particularly interested me is how the difficulty users face in comprehending a machine’s interface can be likened to the “listening” aspect of interactivity. Users struggle to figure out how a machine functions, which makes it harder for them to effectively communicate with it. This can result in the machine misinterpreting their intentions or causing confusion, essentially a conversation that’s gone off the rails. So, my take on this connection between Norman and Crawford is that intuitive and straightforward design is non-negotiable for fostering better interactivity. It’s about designing technology that speaks the user’s language, aligning with their mental model and expectations. But it’s also about making sure the machine can “listen” and understand the user’s commands without any issues.

With all of this, I realized the critical importance of UX design: considering the end user when creating technology. We can’t simply assume that users will figure things out the way we do; we need to empathize with their needs, thought processes, and limitations. And user experience and user testing must be a part of my work when I start working on my midterm project.

Concept:
During class on Wednesday, one of the example datasets that was brought up in class was wind data as the professor played with the globe data visualization. When I saw the wind data, I immediately thought of drawing wind turbines that matched the wind speed data, and that’s what I ended up doing for this project.

Sketch:

While in the planning phase, I thought that this project would be just fun to look at and not a data-focused piece, but this had the unexpected result of being surprisingly insightful about wind speeds during the day. The wind is strongest during the day at about 14:00-17:00, and weakest around midnight to late morning.

Code: 
I was proud of my day/ night cycle code, as I thought it was clever. I drew a black box over the entire screen, and the opacity changes depending on the time of day so it is able to give off a feeling of ‘darkness’ during midnight hours, and it is fully transparent during the daytime.

// opacity of black screen over the screen to give illusion of day/night cycle
const darknessLevel = mapOfHourToDarkness[curHour - 1]
push()
fill(0, 0, 0, darknessLevel * 5)
square(0, 0, 400)
pop()

// complex math -- basically calculates the curSkyColor as an average of darkSky and brightSky, weighted towards darkSky based on the current darknessLevel
curSkyColor = p5.Vector.add(p5.Vector.mult(darkSkyColor, darknessLevel), p5.Vector.mult(brightSkyColor, 10 - darknessLevel)).div(10)

Improvements
There was more data in my .CSV file including wind direction, but I couldn’t think of a good way to implement but it would’ve been nice. I was also not able to find a free API for UAE wind data, and I had to manually scrape the data for a certain day. It would have been fun to be able to visualize the wind speeds of the current/previous day instead of being stuck on 27 Sept 2023.

This is the visualization of the data about the popularity of a set of popular songs in 2023. The red line stands for the number of times it was streamed, the green line stands for the number of Spotify playlists it was included, and the blue line stands for the number of Apple playlists it was included. I couldn’t find any WEBGL fonts, and it was almost impossible to detect which ball was clicked in WEBGL (at least for my Javascript abilities), so I couldn’t label the axis nor display information of the song when its representative ball was clicked.

The Design of Everyday Things, The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

While reading the text, so many real-life examples of me having trouble with the designs of the things came to my mind. Just taking the example of our campus, the heavy automatic doors in the entrance of the buildings, which open to one side only, or the design of the grass in front of the D2, which makes people bypass them instead of walking straight (although some people just step on the grass instead of bypassing it), or the lighting in the huge study rooms which turn off by itself if no movement is detected under some unlogically built detectors. By providing these examples, I am suggesting that I support the author’s position about the abundance of user-unfriendly everyday things. 

I would like to extend the author’s idea by claiming that the difficulty of understanding the design isn’t the only issue. The main issue is having a continuous uncomfortable experience while using the devices because of poor design. Once you understand how things work, it becomes easier to manage. However, if the thing is itself unfriendly, the difficulties with the utilization of the object continue. For instance, taking the same example of the study rooms, it might be hard in the beginning to understand how to open the door. For those who don’t know, the button on the wall (separated from the door) should be pressed in order to open the door. However, by doing the same thing over and over again, this aspect becomes like a habit so the people intuitively start pressing the button before opening the door. However, the issue of lamps turning off when the movement isn’t detected continues to make the uncomfortable experience in study rooms. Usually, the detectors of movements are placed at the entrance, so the lights will be turned on when the people enter. However, no one sits in front of the entrance door. Because of the lack of detectors on top of the chairs or putting them in random spots, the light turns off being unable to recognize that someone is really sitting in the room. This is the reason for terminating my presence in the study rooms. 

This reading really gave a feeling of satisfaction as if the author really raised the voice of all the users. As the author mentioned, the design of the objects should rely on common knowledge rather than logical explanations as people are the way they are, not the way the engineers expect them to be. Here raises the question of the range of the common knowledge. To what extent we can simplify things to common knowledge without sacrificing the functionality of things? For instance, is it better to have many functionalities in the washing machine with detailed instructions to them or is it better to limit the washing machine design to several buttons with the most obvious functions, so the instructions paper is not needed? 

Before delving into the first chapter of Chris Crawford’s “The Art of Interactive Design”, my understanding of “interaction” was rather straightforward—I saw it as any form of engagement that elicited a response. However, learning about Crawford’s comprehensive criteria,  which highlight the significance of cyclically reciprocal actions such as active listening, speaking, and thinking, has expanded my viewpoint. His idea allows for evaluation of the depth of interactivity in different mediums, which challenged my previous idea that something either is interactive or not.

Another idea that caught my attention was that interactivity is in fact subjective. This thought makes complete sense, as different users have different expectations, levels of interest, motivation and personal preferences. For instance, someone who prefers a more passive form of engagement and somebody who strikes for a more immersive experience will most likely not find something like the YouTube algorithm interactive on the same level. Another factor I considered after the reading is that interactivity can be staged; in other words, it is not difficult to make something appear interactive when, in fact, it is not. This issue arises for several reasons. First, there is often a false overuse of the term “interactive”, leading to a dilution of its meaning. This aligns with the misconception with which Crawford opens the first chapter, highlighting the need for a more precise understanding and definition of true interactivity. Second, there seems to be a common tendency to mistake participation and reaction as true interaction. While these elements are integral to many interactive experiences, they lack the deep, cyclically reciprocal engagement that Crawford’s definition of interactivity highlights.

An example that comes to mind is gamification, which involves applying game-like elements, such as points, badges, leaderboards, and rewards, to non-game activities to make them more engaging and interactive. Such strategy is often used in various apps, for example, educational applications such as Duolingo. Duolingo gained its popularity since it was perceived as highly interactive due to the visual feedback and competitive elements, but that is more or less only the surface of the application. Upon closer examination, one may realize that the core learning experience remains passive and one-directional, with limited opportunities for genuine engagement, discussion, or deep understanding of the subject matter.

Chris Crawford’s approach to redefining interactivity challenged my previous understanding. Before reading his work, I had simplistically viewed “interaction” as any engagement that elicited a response. However, Crawford’s detailed criteria, emphasizing cyclically reciprocal actions like active listening, speaking, and thinking, expanded my perspective. It dawned on me that interactivity is not solely objective; it also involves subjective assessments of its degree. This revelation prompted me to reconsider instances I’d deemed interactive but didn’t align with Crawford’s definition. This reevaluation applies to the concept of participation as well. My initial interpretation had primarily focused on the term “interact,” which, as I realized, is distinct from “interactivity” and represents two surprisingly different notions.

To illustrate this point, consider social media platforms. We often think of them as interactive because users can like, comment on, and share posts. However, these platforms are primarily built around interfaces for content presentation and interaction with other users. The core design is about presenting information rather than fostering deep interactivity. Another example is YouTube. While viewers can like, comment, and subscribe, the core design revolves around presenting videos and ads. It offers interaction elements, but they don’t necessarily facilitate the deep, cyclically reciprocal engagement that Crawford’s definition of interactivity suggests. So, interactive design can indeed transcend traditional interface design, encompassing a wide range of digital experiences that may appear interactive on the surface but don’t fully align with the rich criteria Crawford outlines for true interactivity.

I greatly enjoyed the discourse on interactivity versus reactivity, and as someone who’s been trying to read a lot recently, the description the author gives on why books are not interactive was enlightening. An interactive object has to “listen, think, and speak”, and when you think about it, many forms of entertainment center around the object “speaking” to us, be it a TV or a book.

For a piece to be a good interactive piece, it has to strike a good balance between the three as pointed out by the author, and “trading off” one component to prioritize the other two weakens the whole project’s interactivity as a whole. However, personally I feel that for an interactive piece, I disagree with the author in that it doesn’t need to fulfill all three components to be a successful piece. For example, Chris Milk’s “The Treachery of Sanctuary” may not be the most interactive piece from the “listening” perspective, but it does “think, and speak” well enough to compensate for the relatively few actions that a viewer can take, saying a lot even if it isn’t listening that much ( for example, the first two screens where it doesn’t really matter what the viewer is doing ).

A question I had was that I struggled to understand how an object would “think”. I understood it in the context of a conversation between two people, but I don’t really get it from the perspective of something like an art piece. In my opinion, the “think” part of an interactive object does not matter too much, and the most important parts is “listening” and then “speaking” back an appropriate reply, though “thinking” is likely needed to construct a good reply. Is the “thinking” for a piece then simply how the UI/robot/art constructs a reply to a user’s interaction with the piece?

The author’s humble introduction, where he admitted that none of us truly have a crystal-clear understanding of what interactivity is, immediately resonated with me. It’s a sentiment many of us can relate to – we often have a sense of what certain concepts mean, but articulating a precise definition can be difficult to find.

The idea of using the conversation between Fredegund and Gomer as an example to define interactivity was a pleasant surprise. It underscored the importance of key elements in any interactive exchange: listening, thinking, and speaking. It made me realize that without these components, a conversation can hardly be considered truly interactive; instead, it becomes a one-way process, lacking the depth and richness of true interaction.

The analogy of actors and a branch of a tree further clarified the concept. I’ve always believed that interactions are a two-way street, and when I engage with someone new, I often observe how they perceive the interactive process. Do they view it as a collaborative effort, like the intertwining branches of a tree, or is it merely a one-sided performance?

Prior to reading the article, I was uncertain about what qualified as interactive and what did not. The depiction of interactivity into different levels provided me with a valuable framework for understanding and categorizing interactive experiences.

However, it was the author’s explanation about the importance of listening that truly resonated with me. Each sentence in that section felt relatable. We’ve all encountered individuals who do not truly listen, and the negative vibe they emanate in such interactions is noticeable. Conversely, engaging with someone who not only listens but comprehends and engages with our thoughts is an immensely positive experience.

In conclusion, the article shed light on the multifaceted nature of interactivity and the crucial role of listening, thinking, and speaking in fostering meaningful interactions. It provided clarity on what constitutes true interactivity and offered a humorous take on subjective perspectives. Ultimately, it reminded me that genuine interactions are a delicate balance of engagement, empathy, and active participation.