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The Design of Everyday Things

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Every man-made object, environment, or program in our world is designed. From
doorknobs to smartphone apps, design pervades our lives to the point that it often
becomes completely invisible. When we struggle with one of these designs, we
assume that our difficulties are our own fault, or that we’re just not smart enough to
figure it out. But that blame is misplaced. More often than not, the true culprit in
cases of “human error” is actually bad design.
In The Design of Everyday Things (originally released in 1988 under the title The
Psychology of Everyday Things and revised in 2013), cognitive psychologist and
engineer Don Norman explores the ways people understand and interact with the
physical environment (this is sometimes referred to as “user experience”). In doing

The Design of Everyday Things 1

 so, he makes all of us smarter consumers and helps designers create products that
work with users, rather than against them.

* Interacting With Objects

At its core, design is any human influence on the physical world. This applies to
everything from ancient architectural marvels to the layout of clothes in your closet.
When we interact with design, we’re guided by the principles of discoverability and
understanding. Discoverability refers to whether a user can figure out what an
object is and how to use it without considerable effort. Discoverability answers the
question, “How do I use this thing?” Understanding, in this context, refers to the
user’s ability to make meaning out of the discoverable features of the object.
Understanding answers the questions, “What is this, and why do I want to use it in
the first place?”
Focusing on these factors is a hallmark of human-centered design, which is a
design philosophy that flips the traditional design process on its head by focusing on
human needs and behaviors first and designing products to fit those needs, rather
than designing a product and hoping that users figure out how to use it.

* How Do We Know How to Use an Object?

To design for human needs, we need to understand how people interact with
design. There are six design principles that influence how we interact with an object:
affordances, signifiers, mapping, feedback, models, and the system image.

Affordances are the finite number of ways in which a user can possibly interact with
a given object. They answer the question, “What is this thing for?” For example,
chairs typically have a flat surface, which we intuitively recognize as an indicator of
support. In other words, the look of a chair suggests that it is for sitting on.

Signifiers are signals that draw the user’s attention to an affordance they may not
have intuitively discovered, like a “click here” button on a website or a “push” sign
on a door. For designers, signifiers are more important than affordances: The most
sophisticated technology is pretty useless if a user can’t find the “on” button.

Mapping uses the position of two objects to communicate the relationship between
them. For example, if you see a row of three lights and a panel of three switches,
natural mapping would mean the position of the switch corresponds to the position

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 of the light it controls. Mapping is not universal since culture can influence how we
think about direction and spatial relationships.
Feedback is a sensory signal that alerts the user that what they’re doing to an
object is having some effect. Feedback can tell us when something is working as
expected, but more importantly, when it’s not working how we want. In a car, a
dashboard alert light or the sound of squeaking brakes are both sources of
feedback that let us know something is wrong.
Models (also called conceptual models or mental models) are mental images of an
object and how it works based on affordances, signifiers, mapping, and feedback.
Mental models stem from the universal instinct to organize information into cohesive
stories. But these stories are not always accurate, and false mental models of a
design can cause confusion.

For example, many people have an inaccurate model of their home thermostat.
They assume the thermostat controls a valve that opens a certain amount
based on the setting, and that setting it higher will warm the room faster. In
reality, most thermostats are a simple on/off switch, so setting a higher
temperature has no effect on how fast the room warms up.

The System Image is the sum total of the information we have about an object,
including both its physical properties and information from user manuals, product
websites, or past experience. The system image is the only way designers can
communicate their model of how something works to the user.

* Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior

The way we think clearly influences how we interact with objects, but designers
often underestimate the role of psychology in user interaction.

* The Seven Stages of Action

When we interact with an object, we face two “gulfs” of understanding: the Gulf of
Execution, (figuring out what an object does and how to use it) and the Gulf of
Evaluation (evaluating results after using the object). To cross these gulfs, we use a
seven stage action cycle. This action cycle happens unconsciously unless we’re
interacting with an unfamiliar or confusing object. Each stage answers a particular
question.

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 1. Goal: What result do I want to achieve?

2. Plan: What options do I have for achieving my goal?

3. Specify: Which of these options will I choose?

4. Perform: How do I execute my plan?

5. Perceive: What happened when I did that?

6. Interpret: What does that result mean?

7. Compare: Did I reach my goal?

Let’s use grocery shopping as an example to see the seven steps in action. In that
case, they may look something like this:

1. Goal: I need to go grocery shopping.

2. Plan: Should I drive to the store or take the bus?

3. Specify: I think I’ll drive.

4. Perform: I’ll follow the usual route to the store instead of a new one.

5. Perceive: Everything went smoothly and I’ve parked at the store.

6. Interpret: This means I can now go inside and shop.

7. Compare: I’ve met my goal of going grocery shopping!

This cycle will play out multiple times for any given action because most behaviors
have both an overall goal (like “go grocery shopping”) composed of several
subgoals (“start the car”). Determining the overall goal is important because it gives
designers a better idea of what users really want. To do this, we use root cause
analysis, or continually asking “why?” about a behavior until there is no further
answer. The root cause of a behavior might be internal goal-driven (studying for a
test) or external event-driven (putting in earplugs in a noisy environment).

* Conscious vs. Subconscious Processing

People react to technology in their lives through thoughts and emotions, and good
design can capitalize on those reactions. To do that well, designers need an
accurate working model of how the brain processes information.

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 There are two types of cognitive processing: conscious and subconscious.
Conscious processing is deliberate: It’s where we compare options, predict possible
outcomes, and come up with new ideas. Subconscious processing is automatic and
works in generalizations. It’s the home of pattern recognition and snap judgments.

We can think of these differences in terms of three levels of processing: visceral,

behavioral, and reflective.

The visceral level is subconscious and involves our most primitive reflexes, like
startling at a loud noise or flinching when something flies towards us
unexpectedly. Visceral reactions can have a powerful influence on how users
respond to an object. An otherwise well-designed product can fail if it provokes
a negative visceral response in the user (like with a sudden, blaring alarm, or an
unpleasant odor.)

The behavioral level is the home of the subconscious process of turning thought
into action. It fills the gap between intention (like speaking) and action (moving
your lips, tongue, and jaw in specific ways). This level is important in design
because it functions based on expectations—if you flip a light switch, you
subconsciously expect a light to turn on. If it doesn’t, your ability to process the
action is interrupted by bad design.

The reflective level is where conscious processing happens. This is where we

interpret information from the other levels and use those conclusions to make
decisions. If a product “rubs us the wrong way” on the visceral level, the
reflective level might evaluate that information and consciously decide not to
use that product again.

For example, if an alarm clock keeps perfect time and is easy to use, but the
alarm sound itself is so loud and jarring that you wake up each morning thinking
the house is on fire, the memory of that visceral response might make you view
the interaction negatively and avoid that specific clock (or brand) in the future.

* Memory
Memory also impacts our interactions with objects. There are two kinds of
knowledge: “knowledge in the head” (memory) and “knowledge in the world," which
is anything we don’t have to remember because it’s contained in the environment

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 (like the letters printed on keyboard keys). Putting knowledge into the world frees up
space in our memories and makes it easier to use an object.

The knowledge we keep in our heads is only as precise as the environment

requires. Most people won’t notice if you change the silhouette on an American
penny because we only need to remember the color and size to tell a penny apart
from other coins. We’re more likely to notice changes to the portrait on an American
dollar bill, because we’re used to relying on that image to help us tell bills apart
(since they are identical in size, shape, and color).

Memories can be stored either short- or long-term. Short-term memory is the

automatic storage of recent information. We can store about five to seven items in
short-term memory at a time, but if we lose focus, those memories quickly
disappear. This is important for design: Any design that requires the user to
remember something is likely to cause errors.

Long-term memory isn’t limited by time or number of items, but memories are stored
subjectively. Meaningful things are easy to remember; arbitrary things are not. To
remember arbitrary things, we need to impose our own meaning through
mnemonics or approximate mental models. Designers can make this easier for
users by making arbitrary information map onto existing mental models (for
example, think of the way Apple has kept the location of the power and volume
buttons relatively the same with each new version of the iPhone.)

* The Error of “Human Error”

Industry professionals estimate that between 75 and 95 percent of industrial
accidents are attributed to human error. This number is misleading, since what we
think of as “human errors” are more likely outcomes of a system that has been
unintentionally designed to create error, rather than prevent it.

* Detecting Errors
Errors can be divided into “slips” (errors of doing) and “mistakes” (errors of thinking).
Accidentally putting salt instead of sugar in your coffee is a slip—your thinking was
correct, but the action went awry. Pressing the wrong button on a new remote
control is a mistake—you carried out the action fine, but your thought about the
button’s function was wrong.

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 Most everyday errors are slips, since they happen during the subconscious
transition from thinking to doing. Slips happen more frequently to experts than
beginners, since beginners are consciously thinking through each step of a task. On
the other hand, mistakes are more likely to happen in brand new scenarios where
we have no prior experience to pull from, or even familiar scenarios if we misread
the situation.

* Causes of Error
One major cause of error is that our technology is engineered for “perfect” humans
who never lose focus, get tired, forget information, or get interrupted. Unfortunately,
these humans don’t exist. Interruptions in particular are a major source of error,
especially in high-risk environments like medicine and aviation.
Social and economic pressures also cause error. The larger the system, the more
expensive it is to shut down to investigate and fix errors. As a result, people
overlook errors and make questionable decisions to save time and money. If
conditions line up in a certain way, what starts as a small error can escalate into
disastrous consequences.

Social and economic pressures played a critical role in the Tenerife airport
disaster, when a plane taking off before receiving clearance crashed into
another plane taxiing down the runway at the wrong time. The first plane had
already been delayed, and the captain decided to take off early to get ahead of
a heavy fog rolling in, ignoring the objections of the first officer. The crew of the
second plane questioned the unusual order from air traffic control to taxi on the
runway, but obeyed anyway. Social hierarchy and economic pressure led both
crews to make critical mistakes, ultimately costing 583 lives.

*
Preventing Errors
Good design can minimize errors in many ways. One approach is resilience
engineering, which focuses on building robust systems where error is expected and
prepared for in advance. There are three main tenets of resilience engineering.

1. Consider all the systems involved in product development (including social

systems).

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 2. Test under real-life conditions, even if it means shutting down parts of a system.

3. Test continuously, not as a means to an end, since situations are always

changing.

Constraints
Designers can also use constraints, which limit the ways users can interact with an
object. There are four main types of constraints: physical, cultural, semantic, and
logical.
Physical constraints are physical qualities of an object that limit the ways it can
interact with users or other objects. The shape and size of a key is a physical
constraint that determines the types of locks the key can fit into. Childproof caps on
medicine bottles are physical constraints that limit the type of users who can open
the bottle.

Cultural constraints are the “rules” of society that help us understand how to interact
with our environment. For example, when we see a traditional doorknob, we expect
that whatever surface it’s attached to is a door that can be opened. This isn’t
caused by the design of the doorknob, but by the cultural convention that says
“knobs open doors."
When these agreements about how things are done are codified into law or official
literature, they become standards. We rely on standards when design alone isn’t
enough to make sure everyone knows the “rules” of a situation (for example, the
layout of numbers on an analog clock is standardized so that we can read any
clock, anywhere in the world).

Although they’re less common, semantic and logical constraints are still important.
Semantic constraints dictate whether information is meaningful. This is why we can
ignore streetlights while driving, but still notice brake lights—we’ve assigned
meaning to brake lights (“stop!”), so we know to pay attention and react.
Logical constraints make use of fundamental logic (like process of elimination) to
guide behavior. For example, if you take apart the plumbing beneath a sink drain to
fix a leak, then discover an extra part leftover after you’ve reassembled the pipes,
you know you’ve done something wrong because, logically, all the parts that came
out should have gone back in.

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 The Design Thinking Process

“Design thinking” is the process of examining a situation to discover the root

problem, exploring possible solutions to that problem, testing those solutions, and
making improvements based on those tests. This process is iterative, which means
it is repeated as many times as necessary, each time with slight improvements
based on previous iterations.
Design thinking involves two tasks: finding the right problem and finding the right
solution. Designers are often hired to solve symptoms, but good designers dig
deeper to find the underlying problem before coming up with solutions. To do this,
designers run through four stages: observation, idea generation, prototyping, and
testing. This process is repeated as many times as necessary to develop the final
product.
The observation phase involves gathering information on the people who will use
the new design. This is different from market research: Designers want to know
what people need and how they might use certain products, while marketers want to
know which groups of people are most likely to buy the product.
After observation comes the idea generation phase, where designers brainstorm
solutions to the problem. The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible without
censoring “silly” ideas, since they might spark valuable discussion. Designers will
then create prototypes of the most promising ideas using things like sketches and
cardboard models.

Once the prototype is refined, the testing phase begins, where members of the
target user group are asked to try out the prototype and give their feedback.
Designers then repeat the entire process based on the feedback from the first round
of testing. The iterative design thinking process emphasizes testing in small batches
with refinement in between rather than waiting until the final product and testing with
a much larger group.

* Design Thinking in the Real World

In reality, the design process often doesn’t live up to the above ideal. Business
pressures are the primary culprit here, since a well-designed product will still fail if
it’s over budget and past deadlines. Product development team dynamics are also a
challenge. The best teams are multidisciplinary, combining unique knowledge from

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 different fields. However, each team member usually thinks their discipline is the
most important.
Diversity among users can also impact design. For users with disabilities, designers
can turn to a universal design approach. Universal design creates products that are
usable by the widest range of people by designing for the highest need, not the
average need. Adopting a universal design approach changes how designers
choose the types of people and environments to observe as well as the features
they focus on most in the prototyping and testing phases.
This approach is “universal” because if a product, environment, or service is
designed with disability access in mind, it will typically also be usable for those
without disabilities. For example, curb cuts were originally designed for wheelchair
users but are also enormously helpful for anyone pushing a stroller or lugging a
suitcase.

* Technological Innovation
Economic pressures drive innovation. This can take the form of “featuritis," or the
tendency to add more and more features to a product to keep up with competitors.
These features ultimately degrade the design quality of the original product. Rather
than winning over customers with new features, it’s better to do one thing better
than anyone else on the market.

Real quality innovation can be either radical or incremental. Radical innovation

involves high-risk, game-changing ideas while incremental innovation makes small
improvements to existing products over time. The invention of the automobile was
radical—all the small improvements that led to cars as we know them today
happened incrementally.

* The Future of Technology

Rapid technological innovation raises questions about the future of user experience.
The way we interact with objects around us will certainly change in response to new
technologies, and cultural conventions will change to reflect that. But human needs
will remain the same. For example, the keyboard has evolved from mechanical
typewriters to computer keyboards to touchscreen versions, but the need to record
written information has stayed the same. In other words, human needs won’t
change, but the way they’re satisfied will.

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 Some people fear that the rise of smart technology is making humans less
intelligent because we can delegate even the most basic tasks to machines—and if
those machines fail, we are totally helpless. It’s true that some traditional skills are
becoming obsolete thanks to new technology, but that process ultimately makes us
smarter. The energy saved by not having to create a fire every time we need heat or
light or rely on long division for simple calculations can be channeled into higher-
level pursuits. Our intelligence hasn’t changed, only the tasks we apply it to. The
key is in using technology to do the jobs technology can and should do.

* Increased Creation and Consumption

Technological innovation has made it easier than ever for anyone with a computer
to create and publish new media. While amateur content creation has gotten easier,
creating professional content has gotten harder and more expensive. The
accessibility of smart technology levels the playing field, but makes it much harder
to find quality, fact-checked content.
For manufacturers, new technologies present a different challenge. The need to
entice buyers is a fundamental part of business, because a product that doesn’t sell
is a failure, no matter how well designed it is. But while services like healthcare and
food distribution are self-sustaining (because there will always be a need for them),
durable physical goods are not. If everyone who needs a particular product
purchases one, there’s no one left to sell it to; If everyone already owns a
smartphone, how do you convince them to buy the new and improved model?
One way manufacturers get around this is through planned obsolescence, the
practice of designing products that will break down after a certain amount of time
and need to be replaced. This creates a cycle of consumption: buy something, use
it until it breaks, throw it away, and buy another. While this cycle is good for
business, the waste it generates is horrible for the environment. Thankfully, the
combination of new technologies and a growing cultural awareness of sustainability
issues is creating a new paradigm. The future of technology involves products
designed with both the user and the environment in mind.

Chapter 1: How the Design of Physical Objects Shapes Our Lives

Chapter 1: How the Design of Physical Objects

Shapes Our Lives

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 This chapter lays the foundation for the rest of the book by illustrating how the
design of physical objects has a much bigger impact on our lives than most people
assume. Poorly designed objects can cause frustration, time delays, and even
injury.

* What Does “Good Design” Look Like?

At its core, design is any human influence on the physical world. We tend to think of
this in terms of buildings, fashion, or products, but design is much broader than just
a few fields. Every object or environment that has been created or modified by
humans is designed. This applies to everything from ancient architectural marvels to
the layout of clothes in your closet.
As technology evolves, new fields of design pop up to focus on specific problems.
User interaction is important in every subfield, but it’s most often talked about in
industrial, interaction, and experience design.

Industrial design focuses on the creation and development of physical objects,

with a particular focus on function, aesthetics, and value.

Interaction design focuses on the interface between user and object, usually in
a digital context (think website design).

Experience design focuses on the emotional experience of using a product,

service, or environment.

Each of these fields focuses on redefining “good” design in terms of user

experience. Two important principles guiding this definition are discoverability and
understanding. Discoverability refers to whether a user can figure out what an
object is and how to use it without considerable effort. Discoverability answers the
question, “How do I use this thing?”

For example, the style of a door handle and the location of the hinges make it
easy to discern what that object is and how it works—it is easily discoverable.
But a modern or industrial door with no visible hardware can be almost
impossible to figure out.

Understanding, in this context, refers to the user’s ability to make meaning out of
the discoverable features of the object. Understanding answers the questions,
“What is this, and why do I want to use it in the first place?” On a normal door,

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 handles and hardware indicate where to push or pull—but they also help us
understand what this object is (a door) and what it’s used for (opening and closing).
In other words, good design has to consider not only the form and function of a
product, but also the experience of interacting with that product.

* Why Good Designers Make Bad Products

If interactions are such a crucial part of good design, why do designers so often get
it so wrong? There are two primary reasons for this.

1. Traditionally, the objects and technology we interact with on a daily basis are
created by engineers, who are typically logical thinkers who have been trained
to focus only on function. Their goal is to create a superior product—and
because they understand how to use that product, they often assume others will
understand, too. In other words, engineers create products under the false
assumption that people perform like machines—they always act logically, aren’t
influenced by emotion, and rarely make errors.

2. Engineers and designers typically don’t have the ultimate say in all decisions
about a product. They’re limited by the budget set by the company or client, by
the logistical capabilities of the manufacturer, and by the needs of the marketing
team. The final product must be not only well-designed, but also possible to
produce (at scale and within budget) and easy to sell.

* Human-Centered Design
One solution to this problem is human-centered design. Human-centered design is
not a subfield like industrial or interaction design. It is a design philosophy that can
be applied in any design specialization. The goal of human-centered design is to flip
the traditional design process on its head by focusing on human needs and
behaviors first, and designing products to fit those needs, rather than designing a
product and hoping that users figure out how to use it.
Let’s use a simple fork as an example. The traditional design process would most
likely begin with a designer thinking, “I’d like to design a new kind of fork.” She
would then brainstorm new versions of the fork, create sketches and prototypes of
those ideas, and tweak those prototypes until she was happy with the finished
product.

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 Instead of a concrete product idea, a human-centered design approach would begin
with a set of questions: “What tools do people use to eat food? What problems do
they run into with those tools? How can they be improved?” The designer would
then observe different types of people eating different types of food, conduct
interviews with people about their preferred cutlery, and research the history of
eating utensils. She would identify the main problems in the current technology and
only then begin to brainstorm ideas for how to address those needs.

* The Speed of Technological Development

Modern technology evolves exponentially faster than ever before. While previous
generations may have had one phone per household that was only updated after
decades of use, we now have personal cell phones, with new and improved models
being released twice a year. In contrast, design practices and principles evolve
much slower. This means that technology is outpacing our ability to effectively
interact with it.
This creates a paradox: Technology simplifies our lives, but the more advanced
technology becomes, the more difficult it is to learn and operate, which adds
complication. We see this when users buy a new, state-of-the-art television, only to
be overwhelmed by the endless remote control buttons and ultimately only learning
to use one or two features.

* How Do We Know How to Use an Object?

There are six design principles that influence how we interact with an object:
affordances, signifiers, mapping, feedback, models, and the system image. Each of
these principles may be more or less relevant than the others for a specific object,
but they are always present to some degree.

* Affordances
The term “affordance” refers to the relationship between an object and a user.
Affordances are the finite number of ways in which a user can possibly interact with
a given object. They answer the question, “What is this thing for?”
For example, think of a chair. Chairs typically have a flat surface, which we
intuitively recognize as an indicator of support, either for a person or an object. In

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 other words, the look of a chair suggests that it is for sitting on, or possibly resting
objects on.
Some affordances are obvious from the appearance of the object itself, like the flat
surface of the chair. Other affordances may be less intuitive or even completely
hidden. For example, if the chair were light enough (and the user strong enough),
throwing across the room may be another affordance of the chair. Similarly, if the
chair had a well-hidden secret compartment, hiding objects would be an affordance
of the chair, regardless of whether the user discovers the drawer or not. The key is
that it is a possible interaction.
Affordances can be deliberately designed—by nature, a chair is designed for sitting,
a coat rack is designed to hold coats, and a stair railing is designed to prevent falls.
But affordances can also arise completely by accident. The chair could also be used
as a step stool, the coat rack as a child’s climbing gym, or the railing as a bookshelf.
These aren’t the uses the designer had in mind, but they are equally valid
affordances.
However, affordances are not merely properties of the object itself. Instead, they
describe the relationship between the object and the user. This means that without
a user to interact with, an object has no affordances. It also means that affordances
for the same object can vary between different users. Think back to the chair
example. If the user is a toddler, crawling under might be another affordance of the
chair. But if the user is a large adult, crawling under is not a possible interaction
between the user and the chair. The chair remains the same, but the affordance
changes based on the different characteristics of the user.

* Signifiers
The idea of hidden affordances highlights the need for signifiers. A signifier is a
signal that draws the user’s attention to an affordance they may not have intuitively
discovered. In a digital context, a “click here” button or flashing icon are possible
signifiers. In the example below, the “push” sign is a signifier. It contrasts with the
perceived affordance of the handles (pulling), which may cause confusion.
Affordances and signifiers are easy to mix up, and even seasoned designers
sometimes use one word when they really mean the other. The key difference is
that affordances describe the possible interactions between object and user,
whereas signifiers are a way of advertising those affordances (for example, if you

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 take the “push” sign off a door, the door will still open when pushed. You've
removed the signifier, but not the affordance). For designers, signifiers are more
important than affordances. The most sophisticated technology is pretty useless if a
user can’t find the ‘on’ button.

* Mapping
For some simple objects or interfaces, signifiers alone will give the user enough
information to use the object successfully. However, more complex objects might
also require the use of mapping in order to be usable. Mapping uses the position of
two objects to communicate the relationship between them. It’s the simplest way to
show the user which controls correspond to which affordances.
For example, picture the knobs on a stovetop. How do you know which knob
operates which burner? If the stove is well-designed, the arrangement of the knobs
will map onto the arrangement of the burners (typically a square). In that case, if
you want to turn on the bottom left burner, you intuitively reach for the bottom left
knob.
This stovetop example is notorious among designers because effective mapping of
knobs to burners is so rare. When most of us picture a stovetop and its controls, we
picture the burners arranged in a square, but the knobs arranged in a line. In this
setup, the user has to invest far more time and mental energy to figure out which
knob controls which burner, and may have to resort to trial and error.

* Feedback
The next clue for interacting with an object is feedback. If you’ve followed signifiers
to an affordance and used mapping to figure out which control you need to use, how
do you know whether you got it right? Feedback is a sensory signal that alerts the
user that what they’re doing to an object is having some effect. Information that
results from a user’s action is called “feedback”; information that shows a user how
to act in the first place is called “feedforward." Feedforward guides users through
the execution phase, while feedback guides them through evaluation.

Our sensory systems automatically provide basic feedback about our environment
through all of our senses. We automatically process the look, feel, sound, and scent
of objects around us. However, for more complex objects, feedback signals may not

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 be automatic. In that case, designers can deliberately add in sources of feedback
(like a small green bulb that lights up when a machine is “on”).
Feedback tells us when something works, but more importantly, feedback tells us
when an object is not working how we need it to. In a car, a dashboard alert light or
the sound of squeaking brakes are both sources of feedback that let us know
something is wrong. Without these signals, we might not recognize a major problem
until it’s too late. This is especially important when the object’s function is hidden
from view.
But too much feedback can also cause problems. Think of a GPS system that
announces every single cross street. By the time you reach the street you’re looking
for, you’ve long tuned out the constant updates and are likely to miss it. The same is
true of smoke alarms that can’t be easily turned off—once you’re aware of the
emergency, the constant, ear-splitting beeping makes it more difficult to react
appropriately.
Even the smallest decisions on the design of feedback can have enormous
consequences. One notorious example of this is the Three Mile Island incident, in
which a nuclear reactor at a plant in Pennsylvania suffered a partial meltdown and
very nearly resulted in a disastrous radiation leak. The cause of the incident was
determined to be human error, but further investigation traced the root of the
problem to a single indicator light. Counterintuitively, the light would turn on when an
important coolant valve was closed, and turn off when the valve was open. The
confusion caused by this tiny design decision set off a chain reaction that allowed a
small issue to escalate into a full-scale nuclear incident.

Clearly, feedback is important, and too much or too little can cause problems. But
the type of feedback and the way it’s presented is also crucial. A car’s turn signal
flashes on the side of the car that matches the direction the driver intends to turn. If
the opposite side flashes, or both at the same time, that gives you no useful
information about what the car in front of you is about to do.

* Models
So far, we know that affordances tell us what an object is for, signifiers tell us what
and where those affordances are, mapping helps us find the right controls to
engage with those affordances, and feedback tells us whether everything is working

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 right. All of this information produces a model (also called a mental model or
conceptual model). A model is a mental picture of an object and how it works.

Example: Refrigerator Controls

The design of an object itself suggests a certain conceptual model. For example,
some refrigerators have two temperature control knobs, one labeled “freezer” and
the other “refrigerator." These are two separate knobs, which implies that the
temperature of each section is controlled completely independently.

Seeing this, you’d probably assume that the refrigerator and the freezer each
contain an independent temperature sensor that controls an independent cooling
mechanism. This mental model would look something like this:

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 However, in reality, this fridge contains only one cooling unit. The knobs control a
central valve that adjusts how much cold air is blown into each section of the
refrigerator. This means that adjusting one knob will change the temperature in both
the freezer and the refrigerator. So, if the freezer were too cold, adjusting the
freezer knob would warm that section up, but would also funnel more cold air into
the refrigerator below, cooling that section even further. This model looks more like
this:

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 In this example, an inaccurate mental model of the cooling system is likely to result
in frustration (and possibly some spoiled food). But it’s not the user’s fault that their
model is inaccurate—the dual knobs would lead almost anyone to the same faulty
conclusion. The design itself is the problem here, not the user’s understanding of it.

* The System Image

Signifiers, mapping, feedback, and any obvious affordances help us understand
how to use an object. But we also have access to even more information that can
guide our interactions with that object, like user manuals, product websites, and our
own past experience with similar objects. Taken together, the sum total of the
information we have about an object is the system image. The system image is
ultimately what determines how a user interacts with an object. For designers, this
means the object must speak for itself—without the designer in the room to teach
them, users still need to be able to figure out how to use it.
The system image gives us another way to think about why designers sometimes
make confusing or frustrating things. Engineers and designers expect that the
user’s mental model of the object will perfectly match their own mental model. But a
designer may have spent months working on a particular design, whereas the user

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 has zero previous experience with that object. The system image is the only way
designers can communicate their model of how something works to the user.

Exercise: Reexamine Everyday Objects

Exercise: Reexamine Everyday Objects

We typically don’t think about the design of things

around us unless they present a problem. This
exercise will help you think critically about items you
use every day.
This chapter looks at how the design of common items like doors, chairs, and
kitchen appliances can influence how we interact with them. Take a moment to look
around your environment right now. Choose one object within arm’s reach. Imagine
showing the object to a friend who had never seen anything like it before. Do you
think they would be able to figure out what it does? Would they be able to use it
correctly?

What signifiers or perceivable affordances does the object have that would help
your friend figure out its purpose? (Remember: Signifiers are signals that tell us
where or how to interact with something, such as a “push” sign on a door.
Perceivable affordances are obvious ways we can interact with an object, like a flat
surface for supporting weight, or a hollow vessel for holding liquid.)

If you were to redesign this object to make it easier to use and understand, what
changes would you make? (For example, adding signifiers, or rearranging controls
to naturally map onto the object.) How would these changes help?

Now that you’re thinking like a designer, look around the room again. What other
obvious signifiers do you see on other objects or appliances?

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 (BUTTON)
Submit

Chapter 2.1: Conscious and Subconscious Processing

Chapter 2.1: Conscious and Subconscious

Processing
This chapter gives an overview of the conscious and subconscious mental
processes that determine how we perceive, interpret, and respond to objects in our
environment. Traditionally, studying human cognition, emotion, and behavior is the
domain of psychologists, and many designers underestimate the importance of
understanding human behavior. They assume that their experience with their own
thoughts and emotions is more than enough to predict how other people will think
and feel in a given situation. But because the bulk of human cognitive processing
happens on an unconscious level, our own experiences of our conscious thoughts
only show part of the picture.
Every designed object or system will ultimately be used by people. A product that is
technically perfectly engineered but is confusing to use is ultimately a failure. In
other words, understanding the thoughts and emotions that underlie our interactions
with technology has important implications for design.

* Evaluating Behavior With The Seven Stages of

Action
When we interact with a new object, we have two problems to solve: “How do I use
this?” and “Did that work?” Author Don Norman calls these “the gulf of execution”
and “the gulf of evaluation."

The Gulf of Execution refers to the process of figuring out what an object does
and how to use it. This can happen either before using the object or while trying
it out. Affordances, signifiers, and mapping are tools designers use to help
users bridge this gulf.

The Gulf of Evaluation occurs after using an object and refers to the process of
evaluating what the device did and whether that action matched our goals.
Feedback and accurate mental models are the most helpful tools for bridging
this gulf.

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 * The Seven Stages of Action
The gulfs above are important because they represent the two components of an
action: execution and evaluation. We can break these down even further for a total
of seven stages that take us from the impetus of an action all the way through to
successful completion. (If seven distinct steps seems excessive, remember that for
most actions in our daily lives, these stages play out completely unconsciously. We
only become aware of them for tasks that are unfamiliar or confusing.)
A great example of this is driving a car. Experienced drivers make turns and merge
into traffic without much conscious thought. The stages of action have become
automatic through repetition, only requiring thought when something novel comes
up, like construction blocking a particular road. New drivers, on the other hand,
consciously think through every step. Where an experienced driver might think “I
need to turn left," a new driver would think “I need to slow down, check my mirrors,
check for oncoming traffic, turn the wheel, hit the gas pedal with just the right
amount of force, then turn the wheel back again.”

The seven stages of action are: goal, plan, specify, perform, perceive, interpret,
compare. These steps carry the user across the gulfs of both execution and
evaluation. The first stage, “goal," sets the standard that will be used later to
determine if the action was successful. The next three stages (plan, specify,
perform) bridge the Gulf of Execution, while the final three stages (perceive,
interpret, compare) bridge the Gulf of Evaluation. Each of these stages answers a
particular question:

1. Goal: What result do I want to achieve?

2. Plan: What options do I have for achieving my goal?

3. Specify: Which of these options will I choose?

4. Perform: How do I execute my plan?

5. Perceive: What happened when I did that?

6. Interpret: What does that result mean?

7. Compare: Did I reach my goal?

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 Let’s use the driving example again to see the seven steps in action. In that case,
they may look something like this:

1. Goal: I need to go grocery shopping.

2. Plan: Should I drive to the store or take the bus?

3. Specify: I think I’ll drive.

4. Perform: I’ll follow the usual route to the store instead of a new one.

5. Perceive: Everything went smoothly and I’ve parked at the store.

6. Interpret: This means I can now go inside and shop.

7. Compare: I’ve met my goal of going grocery shopping!

In the example above, the action was successful in achieving the goal. However,
the goal of going grocery shopping is part of an overall system that includes both
larger and smaller goals. For example, if I’m making a particular recipe but don’t
have an ingredient I need, going grocery shopping would become a subgoal of my
overall goal of making that recipe. Grocery shopping itself would have multiple
subgoals: locating each ingredient in the store, loading the groceries back into the
car, and so on.

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 * Conscious vs. Subconscious Processing
This section gives an overview of the different ways people cognitively process
thoughts and emotions. This subject is almost never included in traditional design or
engineering training, but it’s important to understand because it is the core of user
experience. People react to technology in their lives through thoughts and emotions,
and good design can capitalize on those reactions. To do that well, designers need
an accurate working model of how the human brain processes information.

Generally speaking, people are only consciously aware of a small portion of their
thoughts and emotions. The rest of our opinions, decisions, emotions, and reactions
happen without any conscious input. When we learn a new skill, we need conscious
focus at first, but once we fully master the skill and make it a frequent habit,
performing requires less and less conscious effort until it is fully subconscious. The
process of mastering a skill to the point that it can be executed subconsciously is
called “overlearning." Think of the new driver compared to the experienced driver—
the new driver is actively concentrating, while the experienced driver can safely
carry on a conversation or sing along to the radio.
(Overlearning applies to complex skills like driving, walking, and learning a
language, but can also apply to factual information. For example, if you’re filling out
a form and are asked for your phone number, you’ll most likely be able to answer
without much effort. But if you’re asked for the address of the second house you
ever lived in, it will take you much longer to come up with the answer.)

Conscious and subconscious processing each have important strengths. Conscious

processing is what sets humans apart from animals. It allows us to compare
options, predict possible outcomes, and come up with new ideas. Conscious
processing happens when we deliberately choose to learn or consider something
new.
Subconscious processing, on the other hand, happens automatically. This is how
we make connections between seemingly unrelated events in our lives, or jump to
premature conclusions based on our past experiences. Subconscious processing
works in generalizations—it automatically predicts that new experiences will follow
the same pattern as similar previous experiences.
Both conscious and subconscious processing are tied to emotions. Emotions trigger
biochemical reactions that prompt the brain to focus more on one type of processing

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 than the other. Generally speaking, negative emotions like fear shut down
conscious processing and divert resources to subconscious survival instincts. On
the other hand, positive, calm emotions allow for the use of conscious processes
like creativity, since the brain is not responding to a perceived threat. This is why we
react to strong feelings of fear with a fight, flight, or freeze response. All three of
these possible responses are completely subconscious—we can’t consciously
choose one, and we have very little conscious control over them once they appear.
The strength of an emotion also matters: Strong emotions bias the brain toward
subconscious processes, while more mild feelings leave room for conscious thought
to intervene.

* Three Levels of Processing

(Shortform note: This section gives a basic overview of Norman’s way of thinking
about the ways humans process thoughts and emotions. For a more detailed look at
his thoughts on the subject, see his book Emotional Design.)
The study of human cognition and emotion is an extremely complex area of
neuroscience. A simplified model of this process is helpful for understanding the
basic ideas and their implications for design. This model divides emotional and
cognitive processing into three distinct levels: visceral, behavioral, and reflective.
Each of these levels has important implications for design, so understanding them is
crucial in order to design technology that is easy to use and to enjoy.
The Visceral Level
The visceral level involves our most primitive reflexes, like startling at a loud noise
or flinching when something flies towards us unexpectedly. This happens in the
lowest part of our brains, the same area responsible for basic functions like
breathing and balancing upright.
The visceral level controls the fight, flight, and freeze responses by signaling the
muscles and heart to behave in particular ways. For example, the bodily signature
of a flight response is a racing heartbeat and increased muscle tension. This
happens in response to a fearful stimulus, but the process can also work in the
opposite direction. If your heart is racing and your muscles are tense from exertion
or excitement, you might mistakenly perceive that combination of sensations as a

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 flight response, and become fearful as a result. Our emotions and perceptions
influence our bodies, and vice versa.
Processing at the visceral level is completely subconscious. It can’t be influenced by
learning, except for basic processes like adaptation (for example, if you work in an
environment with frequent bursts of loud noise, your automatic startle response to
that stimulus may decrease over time as your brain learns that sudden loud noises
don’t always mean danger).
This level of processing is especially important for designers to understand. Visceral
reactions can have a powerful influence on how users respond to an object. An
otherwise well-designed product can fail if it provokes a negative visceral response
in the user (like with a sudden, blaring alarm, or an unpleasant odor.)
The Behavioral Level

The behavioral level also primarily deals with subconscious processing. This might
seem counterintuitive, since we typically choose our behaviors and can observe
them consciously. But the behavioral level of processing is not concerned with why
we act the way we do, but how.
For example, if you want to speak, you have to control your lips, tongue, and jaw in
very specific ways to produce the right sounds. You might consciously choose what
you want to say, but most of us don’t actively will our mouths to make certain
shapes. The same applies to wiggling your fingers or opening a drawer-- we’re not
conscious of the neurological processes involved in those actions. We decide what
to do, and our brains subconsciously forward the message to the correct body parts.
(Unlike the visceral level, responses at the behavioral level can be learned and
changed. This is where overlearning comes in—when we practice something over
and over until it becomes a habit, we’ve moved that skill from a conscious level to
the subconscious behavioral level. Now, when the associated trigger pops up, we
carry out that action without any conscious thought. Overlearning is an important
factor in understanding human error, which is covered more thoroughly in Chapter
5.)
Behavioral processing also has implications for design. By definition, behavioral
responses have a specific expectation attached. If you open your laptop and press
the power button, you expect it to turn on. When you turn a doorknob and push, you
expect the door to open. These expectations are crucial for designers to understand

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 because they have such a huge impact on emotional responses. When our
expectations are not met, we typically experience frustration or disappointment;
when they are met or exceeded, we experience satisfaction and pleasure. In turn,
these emotions strongly influence how we think and feel about the experience of
interacting with a given object.

We often make these associations without realizing it. If your laptop reliably powers
on each time you expect it to, you learn to associate the laptop with satisfaction and
confirmed expectations. If the door frequently doesn’t open when you expect it to
(perhaps because it lacks the necessary signifiers), you associate that type of door
with frustration and annoyance.
The most important design tool for managing user expectations is feedback. If an
experience defies our expectations, we might feel helpless or confused about how
to proceed, ultimately influencing how we think and feel about the experience.
Feedback mitigates this damage by explaining what went wrong, allowing users to
regain a sense of control. Even better, if feedback gives us information about the
problem and how to fix it, we’re much less likely to experience feelings of
helplessness or confusion.
The Reflective Level

The reflective level is the level of conscious processing. Where visceral and
behavioral processing happens instinctively and immediately, reflective processing
is deliberate and therefore much slower. The reflective level allows us to brainstorm,
consider alternatives, exercise logic and creativity, examine a new idea, and, as the
name implies, reflect back on past experiences.
Emotion plays an important role at this level as well. Where the visceral and
behavioral levels deal with subconscious, automatic emotional responses, the
reflective level provokes emotional responses based on our own interpretation of an
experience. For example, while fear is an automatic visceral response, anxiety
about possible future events is a reflective response. Anxiety arises from our ability
to predict possible futures based on current trends. But this is the same process
that underlies feelings like excitement and anticipation. Our own interpretation of our
predictions decides which of these emotions we experience.
Another example of this effect is the difference between guilt and pride. In order for
us to feel either of these emotions, we have to believe we’re directly responsible for
the outcome of a situation. If we judge the outcome of that situation positively, we’re

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 more likely to feel pride. If we judge the outcome negatively, we’re more likely to feel
guilt.
This kind of reflective processing has a strong impact on how we think about
design. The act of reflecting involves synthesizing information from the other two
levels into a cohesive memory of an experience. While visceral and behavioral
processing is concerned only with the present, reflective processing looks back at
the past and uses that information to make predictions about the future.
In a practical context, this means that memory is often the most important factor in
determining how a user feels about the experience of interacting with a given object.
If the object provoked pleasant visceral reactions and met our expectations, we’ll
remember the experience positively. In cases where visceral and behavioral
reactions conflict, reflective processing determines which of these factors we give
more weight to and ultimately decides whether we remember the experience as
positive or negative.

For example, if an alarm clock keeps perfect time and is easy to use, but the
alarm sound itself is so loud and jarring that you wake up each morning thinking
the house is on fire, the memory of that visceral response might make you view
the interaction negatively and avoid that specific clock (or brand) in the future.

* Optimizing the Three Levels

The most successful designs address issues at all three of these levels, leaving
users with a pleasant memory of the experience and a positive view of the design.
Traditionally, designers, artists, and architects are trained to focus on the visceral
level, creating aesthetically beautiful projects that provoke an immediate positive
response. Engineers, on the other hand, focus on the reflective level, creating
projects that function based on logic and higher reasoning.

This is one reason common objects are so often confusing or disappointing to use.
The ultramodern, solid glass door described in Chapter 1 might provoke a positive
visceral response, but the lack of a clear, logical way to interact with it creates
confusion at the reflective level. At the other extreme, medical equipment is often
designed purely to perform a specific function. These machines might be incredibly
technologically sophisticated, but the confusing or sterile aesthetic can trigger a
visceral fear response in patients.

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 The three levels of processing also map onto the seven stages of action. The
second and last of the seven stages (“plan” and “compare”) happen at the reflective
level, as they involve consciously setting goals and evaluating results. The “specify”
and “interpret” stages happen at the behavioral level, involving a mix of conscious
and unconscious processing. The “perform” and “perceive” stages happen
immediately before and after the action itself, and are processed subconsciously on
the visceral level.
Example: Flow States
To understand the importance of this overlap, let’s look at the concept of flow. The
term “flow,” coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, refers to a cognitive
and emotional state in which a person is completely absorbed in an activity. When
in a state of flow, people are so engrossed in an activity that they completely shut
out the outside environment and often lose track of time.
Flow states are created at the behavioral level of processing. Remember that the
behavioral level involves subconscious expectations—we expect a certain outcome
to follow a certain action, and when that doesn’t happen, we tend to get frustrated.
People are most likely to be in flow when the task they’re working on is just slightly
above their skill level.
When an overly easy task satisfies our expectations immediately, with very little
effort, the lack of challenge leaves us feeling bored. On the other hand, an overly
difficult task is likely to be so overwhelming that our expectations are repeatedly
unmet, so we get frustrated and give up. Tasks that trigger flow states strike the
perfect balance between ease and frustration (or between met and unmet
expectations). The tension between these two emotions powerfully captures our
attention and pulls us into a state of flow.
Although flow is a personal experience and no one design can trigger a flow state
for every single user, it’s still a powerful force in shaping user experience. Users in a
state of flow spend hours at a time engaging with a product and will associate it with
a feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment. Those positive experiences are likely to
create happy, loyal customers. In other words, helping users get into a state of flow
is good for the bottom line.
So, what does this have to do with design? Since the design of technology has a
direct impact on how users engage with it, changing certain design factors can
maximize the chance of creating a specific internal response for the user, including

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 a state of flow. To do this successfully, we need to understand both the three levels
of processing and the seven stages of action.

First, we need to know which of the three levels is responsible for processing
the desired emotion (in this case, the fact that being in flow is determined by
expectations tells us we are dealing with the behavioral level).

Next, we need to know which of the stages of action are involved (in this case,
“specify” and “interpret”), since these stages tell us what specific activities
influence that level of processing. In other words, understanding the levels of
processing tells us where design can intervene, and understanding the seven
stages of action tells us how.

Exercise: Break Down an Ordinary Action

Exercise: Break Down an Ordinary Action

The seven stages of action happen automatically for

easy, routine tasks, but thinking through them

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 consciously is a helpful tool for evaluating design.
Let’s practice this now.
Assume that your goal for today was to sit down and read this summary
(congratulations, you’ve already succeeded!). The next stages are plan and specify,
which help us bridge the gulf of execution. (Remember, the plan stage is where we
consider all possible options, and the specify stage is where we select one of those
options to try.) List three ways you could have accomplished the goal of reading this
summary. Which one did you act on?

Since you’re reading this, we know you met your goal—the gulf of evaluation has
been bridged. Now let’s apply this process to a task you haven’t completed yet.
Think of a small goal you’d like to accomplish by the end of today. This could be as
simple as making lunch, or slightly more involved, like finishing a small work project.
What is your goal?

List three different possible ways you could accomplish your small goal. Which of
these options will you choose?

Once you act on your plan, you’ll need to bridge a new gap: the gulf of evaluation.
How will you know when you’ve achieved your goal? (For example, if your goal was
to eat lunch, the feeling of no longer being hungry might be a way to measure
success.)

How did it feel to break down a simple task into such tiny steps? Were any of the
steps more difficult to identify than others?

(BUTTON)
Submit

Chapter 2.2: Making Sense of Our Own Behavior

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 Chapter 2.2: Making Sense of Our Own Behavior
We know that behavior can be either event-driven or goal-driven, and that it can be
broken down into seven stages of action. But what happens when something goes
wrong? How do we explain what happened?

For designers, understanding the way users think about their interactions with
technology is important for creating a positive user experience. It is not enough to
know how something works on a technical level—we need to understand how the
user thinks the object works, and how they explain what happened if something
goes wrong, since these are important factors in determining how people respond to
technology. For designers and non-designers alike, understanding the biases that
shape our own stories helps us make sense of our encounters with bad design.

* Causes of Behavior
To understand the way people think about their interactions with technology, we
need to distinguish between a user’s overarching goal and the smaller subgoals
and actions that lead up to it. Norman quotes Harvard Business School professor
Theodore Levitt as an example, who said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch
drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!” However, it’s unlikely that anyone actually
wants a quarter-inch hole in their wall just for fun. Instead, drilling a hole is most
likely a subgoal leading up to a larger goal of mounting something on the wall.
Determining the overall goal of a behavior is important because it gives designers a
better idea of what users really want. If you’re designing in response to someone
buying a drill, you’ll keep making new kinds of drills. If you’re designing in response
to someone wanting to hang a shelf, you might come up with a new adhesive that
allows the user to mount shelves directly on their wall, without drilling holes. You’ve
addressed their real need and simplified the process of meeting it.

* Root Cause Analysis

To find the original, overarching goal of a behavior, we use a process called root
cause analysis. Essentially, we keep asking “why?” about a behavior until there is
no further answer. In the drill example, the process of root cause analysis would
start with asking, “Why does this person want to buy a drill?," followed by “Why do
they need to put a hole in the wall?” until we reached the conclusion that “They want

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 to hang up a shelf.” But we could push this even further by asking why they want to
hang a shelf in the first place. Do they have too many books? Are they running out
of floor space? Are the walls empty and boring? This gives designers more
intervention points to come up with solutions to meet users’ needs.
One of the lessons of root cause analysis is that every action has either an external
or internal cause. When an internal goal causes a certain action, we call this goal-
driven behavior. When an outside event or a condition of our environment causes
an action, we call this event-driven behavior. Event-driven behaviors are often
opportunistic action, or behavior that arises in response to unexpected events.

For example, if your goal is to do well on an academic exam, the action of

studying would be a goal-driven behavior. If you’re trying to study in a noisy
environment and reach for a pair of earplugs, that would be an event-driven
behavior.

The example above shows how event-driven and goal-driven behavior can be
intertwined, since the event-driven behavior (putting in earplugs) only occurs as part
of the goal-driven behavior (studying). Designers need to be aware of the
differences between event-driven and goal-driven behaviors in order to design for
the user’s actual needs. In the studying example, focusing on designing better
earplugs focuses only on the external factors. Redesigning the entire environment
to be more conducive to the internal goal of studying would address both the
internal and external causes, ultimately creating an even better user experience
overall.

* The Role of Storytelling in User Experience

Root cause analysis helps us make sense of other people’s behavior. To
understand our own behavior, we turn to stories. Humans are born storytellers.
When we’re faced with a jumble of information, our natural instinct is to organize it
into a story that explains cause and effect. Stories help us make sense of our world
and our place in it.
Reorganizing information into a cohesive story is usually a subconscious process.
We operate under the assumption that there must be an underlying pattern
connecting different pieces of information in a way that makes sense, regardless of
whether such a pattern actually exists. In practice, this means that humans are

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 really good at coming up with stories to explain our experiences, but not so good at
determining whether those stories are actually true.
When it comes to understanding our physical environment, these stories take the
form of conceptual models. We create a mental story to explain how something
works, connecting whatever bits of evidence we have about that object into cause
and effect patterns that make sense to us (but may be totally false).

A common source of false conceptual models is thermostats. Because a thermostat

is such a small peek into a complex heating and cooling system, it gives us very few
clues as to how it actually works. All we know is that if we’re too cold, we press a
few buttons on the thermostat and the room eventually gets warmer. All the steps
between “press buttons” and “feel warmer” are hidden and left to the imagination.
This leads people to assume the thermostat controls a valve that opens a certain
amount based on the setting, and that setting it higher will warm the room faster. In
reality, most thermostats are a simple on/off switch, so setting a higher temperature
has no effect on how fast the room warms up.

* Why Do We Blame Ourselves?

Faulty conceptual models often lead us to blame ourselves when an object doesn’t
meet our expectations. If you push a door and it doesn’t open, you push again, but
harder. You assume your action was flawed somehow—not that the door itself was
poorly designed.
The tendency to blame ourselves when technology fails us is interesting because it
is the exact opposite of our default pattern for assigning blame. Normally, when we
perform poorly, we blame our environment (perhaps the sun was in our eyes, or the
dog ate our homework). But when we perform well, we attribute it to our innate
qualities, not the environment.
When we look at other people, this effect is reversed: we assume their successes
are products of their environment, but their failures are due to their personal faults.
(Shortform note: In psychology texts, this tendency is referred to as the
“fundamental attribution error.” To learn more about attribution error and other
cognitive biases, read our summary of Thinking, Fast and Slow
(https://www.shortform.com/app/book/thinking-fast-and-slow) .)

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 As new technologies pop up in every corner of our lives, we’re less and less likely to
admit to struggling with them, especially when it appears that “everyone else
understands this.” In reality, the opposite is true—when it comes to technology, our
struggles are more likely due to design, not our own inadequacy. In other words,
most people are probably experiencing the same difficulties, whether or not they
speak up about it.

* The Value of Failure

So, why are we willing to take the blame for failed interactions with technology, but
not for our failures in general? One possibility is learned helplessness: the belief
that you are doomed to fail in a given situation because you’ve experienced similar
failures in the past. A history of repeated failures with a specific experience makes
us assume that success is impossible, so we may as well stop trying. So, an
encounter with even one or two overly confusing pieces of technology can make us
conclude that we’re just not good with technology in general.

We can reframe these experiences using positive psychology. Positive psychology

is a subfield of psychology that focuses on people’s strengths and positive emotions
instead of their struggles. In this case, positive psychology requires a perspective
shift. Instead of seeing repeated failures as evidence that we’re simply not skilled
enough, we can actively choose to see failures as learning experiences. For
example, if we struggle with a confusing computer program, we might put in the
effort to troubleshoot the problem and ultimately end up with a much more thorough
understanding of the program than if we’d succeeded on the first try.
Scientists use this practice every day. When an experiment fails, they troubleshoot,
find the problem, and try the experiment again. The failure isn’t a bad omen—
provides important information that ultimately creates results.

* Human Errors Are Really System Errors

People make mistakes. This is a universal truth. But the technology around us often
requires us to be perfect—to remember information accurately, never be distracted,
and react in the same way every time.
In law, the idea of “human error” is accepted as a valid explanation for tragic
outcomes. In reality, these errors are rarely “human," but instead a fault of the

The Design of Everyday Things 36

 system. If a piece of technology is designed without regard to human behavior and
cognition, errors are practically guaranteed. Who is responsible for those errors?
Think back to the Three Mile Island incident from Chapter 1. One person
misunderstanding an indicator light caused a massive nuclear incident. But why was
the control system of a nuclear reactor set up in a way that made it possible for one
small mistake to escalate into tragedy? The system was designed to be perfectly
logical, but the design didn’t account for the real humans who would be operating it.
Norman recommends getting rid of the phrase “human error” altogether. Instead, we
should think of interactions between person and machine the same way we think of
interactions between people. When disagreements pop up, each person can clarify
their intentions, propose solutions, and move on. The ideal system allows the user
and the object to interact in the same way.
For example, some digital calendars allow you to enter dates with natural language.
Instead of requiring dates to be entered in a single format, the user can type
“August 3rd," “8/3," or “next Tuesday” and the event will be added to the proper
date. The machine recognizes that humans sometimes phrase things differently,
and is programmed to expect and accommodate that.
(Shortform note: We’ll explore “human error” in much more depth in Chapter 5.)

* Designing for Imperfect Humans

If “human errors” are really “system errors," then designers are ultimately
responsible for preventing those errors whenever possible. The goal is not to design
a perfect system, but rather a system that anticipates inevitable errors, provides
helpful feedback to correct those errors, and has no ‘slippery slopes’ where one
small mistake can set off a catastrophic chain reaction. Here are some specific
recommendations for designers to put this into practice.

Positive psychology: See user “errors” as feedback for where the design needs
improvement. Instead of traditional error messages, provide feedback on the
problem that allows the user to fix it immediately, without starting over or losing
progress on the parts they’ve done correctly.

Root cause analysis: When users struggle, continue asking “why” until you find
the underlying problem. This fixes both the initial problem and any downstream
problems that may stem from it.

The Design of Everyday Things 37

 Think back to the seven stages of design, and the questions posed by each stage.
As a reminder, here are the seven stages and seven questions:

1. Goal: What result do I want to achieve?

2. Plan: What options do I have for achieving my goal?

3. Specify: Which of these options will I choose?

4. Perform: How do I execute my plan?

5. Perceive: What happened when I did that?

6. Interpret: What does that result mean?

7. Compare: Did I reach my goal?

Users should be able to answer each of these questions easily. Designers can use
the following tools to provide these answers:

Discoverability: Users can easily figure out how to use the device, even without
background knowledge.

Feedback: The device gives immediate, meaningful information in response to

user commands. It also gives baseline information (whether power is on, if
maintenance is needed, etc).

Feedback should happen within 0.1 seconds of an action. Any longer and users
may not automatically connect the feedback to their action.

Conceptual model: The way the device works is easy to understand, even when
important affordances are hidden.

Affordances: The device performs the functions users need. This must be true
for all potential users, not just the average user.

Signifiers: Where affordances are not obvious, the device draws the user’s
attention to them with signs, visible hardware, beeping, etc.

Mappings: Controls for the device are laid out in a logical way that gives clues
as to which controls go with which functions.

Constraints: The device’s affordances are limited by physical and cultural

constraints that help users narrow down potential functions. (Constraints are
covered more thoroughly in Chapter 3.)

The Design of Everyday Things 38

 Exercise: Do a Root Cause Analysis

Exercise: Do a Root Cause Analysis

Trace a small behavior backwards to find the big

picture goal.
Imagine you’re in a library. You overhear someone ask the librarian where to find
the science section. What is their immediate goal? What bigger goals might be
driving that immediate goal? (Remember, the easiest way to determine this is to
keep asking “why?” about each goal!)

Without more information, determining the root cause of a behavior can be

subjective. Try this process again, imagining the same library scenario, but with a
different chain of goals driving the behavior of asking for the science section.

Did thinking through a root cause analysis in the above questions come naturally to
you? Is this tool something you use in everyday life? In what areas of your life would
this tool be useful?

(BUTTON)
Submit

Chapter 3.1: The Mechanics of Memory

Chapter 3.1: The Mechanics of Memory

In this chapter, we’ll explore the interaction between “knowledge in the head”
(memory) and “knowledge in the world” (design features). A significant chunk of the
chapter is dedicated to an overview of different types of memory and how they
function. This section isn’t overly technical, and as we’ll see, having a basic
understanding of memory has important implications for design.

The Design of Everyday Things 39

 * “Knowledge in the Head” vs. “Knowledge in the
World”
Norman refers to any information stored solely in memory as “knowledge in the
head." This applies to things like passwords on your computer (unless you’ve
written them down) as well as knowing how to use a computer in the first place.
Knowledge in the head can be either declarative or procedural.

Declarative knowledge is knowledge of something (like knowing your address

or the fact that red traffic lights mean stop). Anything that can be written as a
fact is declarative knowledge, regardless of whether it’s true. You may know for
a fact that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, and that knowledge might
impact how you think about the technology of lightbulbs in general—the fact
that Edison did not actually invent the lightbulb is not important in your
interaction with that technology.

Procedural knowledge is “knowledge how." This applies to things we do without

being able to precisely explain how we do them. Procedural knowledge is built
up with repeated practice and can’t be easily taught to someone else. A master
musician can describe the notes she plays and the time signature, but she
probably can’t articulate the flow of her movements as she actually plays. Even
describing the mechanics of playing an instrument (“I put the first finger of my
left hand here, and strum this string with my right hand”) is not the same as truly
knowing how to do it—if it were, all it would take to master any skill would be to
read about it.

“Knowledge in the world” is anything we know without having to store it in memory.

People learning to use a keyboard can look at the letters—they don’t need to
memorize the location of every key in advance. Students take notes in lectures
instead of attempting to memorize every word they hear. Even something as simple
as putting your wallet under your keys so you don’t forget to bring it when you leave
the house counts as knowledge in the world since it takes the burden off your
memory. The design principles in Chapters 1 and 2 are examples of knowledge in
the world. Signifiers, perceived affordances, and feedback all give us clues on how
to use something, eliminating the need to memorize it.

* The Limits of Knowledge in the Head

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 Human memory is an incredible tool that stores massive amounts of information
from every part of our lives. But that same power imposes certain limitations. To free
up space to remember the things that are most important for our survival, our brains
naturally offload any information that is readily available in the environment.
The advent of cell phones is a great example of this. Before cell phones, it was
common to have the phone numbers of your closest contacts memorized, making
them easy to dial on any available phone. Now, our devices store this information
for us. We’ve moved that knowledge into the world, and in response, most of us
have completely forgotten many of the numbers we once had memorized.
Furthermore, knowledge in the head is typically imprecise. We don’t need an exact
understanding of every detail of an object or situation when a rough working model
will do. To safely cross the street, you don’t need to be able to identify the make and
model of every nearby car—you only need to be able to tell whether or not it’s
moving, and at what speed. In other words, the knowledge we keep in our heads is
the bare minimum that we need to function in any given environment.

Example: Common Coins

A 1979 study demonstrated this using American coins. The study found that fewer
than half of American college students could identify the correct image of a United
States penny from a set of similar images when small details were changed (like
reversing the direction Abraham Lincoln’s silhouette faces or moving the word
“liberty” to a new location).
This task is difficult because our knowledge of coins is stored mostly in the world.
Since most of us rarely need to tell the difference between real and counterfeit
coins, our brains only store the necessary details to distinguish one type of coin
from another (for pennies, this is color, size, and texture). Given a set of images that
have all these distinguishing details in common, we struggle to choose the real
penny because the knowledge in our head is so imprecise. But in a pile of dimes
and quarters, you would pick the penny out easily every time.

Our imprecise knowledge of details is usually all we need for day to day life. But if
those details change significantly, our approximate models may no longer be
enough. Coins provide another great example, this time with real-world
consequences. In 1979, the United States released the Susan B. Anthony dollar
coin, which was nearly the exact size, shape, color, and weight of the existing

The Design of Everyday Things 41

 quarter (but worth four times as much). Suddenly, correctly counting change
required precise knowledge of details, causing mass confusion and frustration.

Why is it that two similar coins can cause so much confusion, but we can easily
distinguish a one dollar bill from a twenty dollar bill? Cultural and historical context
determines how we distinguish one object from another. Because American paper
money uses identically-sized bills, we are used to relying on the images on the bills
themselves to tell them apart. So introducing a new bill of the same size and color
would be no problem for Americans, but would cause uproar in countries that use
size to distinguish between different values of paper money.

* Constraints and Memory

Constraints are conditions that limit the ways we can interact with an object or
system. These conditions can be physical, cultural, semantic, or logical. (The four
categories of constraints will be covered in depth in Chapter 4.) Norman uses the
ancient practice of traveling performers reciting epic poetry as an example. Reciting
even a third of an epic poem like Homer’s Odyssey or Illiad requires memorizing
nine thousand lines, roughly equivalent to two and a half hours of recitation. This
feat sounds impossible, in part because it is. Studies show that skilled performers
are not reciting the poem word for word from memory, but actually recreating it on
the spot using the constraints of poetry.
Depending on the form, poems have to follow certain rules of structure and rhyme.
These rules act as constraints. If a performer tries to remember the last word of a
line of poetry from the full English lexicon, they’re sunk. But if they know the word
has to rhyme with the line before it, and it also has to convey a certain meaning,
those constraints make it much easier to recall the right word.

The Design of Everyday Things 42

 Imagine trying to remember a certain word while reciting a poem. If you know from
the rhyming structure that the word has to rhyme with “ear," that narrows the field,
but not by much: The word could be “fear," “dear," “sneer," and so on. But if the
word also has a constraint on its meaning, and has to mean “a unit of time," the
combined restraints allow for only one answer: “year." With these constraints, a
performer only needs to know the narrative of the story and the form of the poem to
be able to produce what looks and sounds like an exact, word-for-word recitation.
Another example of this is taking apart an appliance to replace a part. Without
memorizing, how do we know which parts go where when it comes time to
reassemble? Physical constraints simplify this process: Certain size screws will only
attach to certain size nuts, and parts of a particular shape will only slot into spaces
that accommodate that shape. The physical nature of the objects themselves limits
the ways they could be assembled, reducing the need to memorize the layout.
For designers, understanding constraints is crucial for creating a positive user
experience. Designing objects and programs that are constrained by physical,
cultural, or semantic rules takes the burden off the user, since the object itself limits
the possible ways to interact with it.

* Types of Memory
This section dives deeper into the different types of memory. It’s important for
designers to have a working understanding of each type of memory, particularly in
the digital age, as increasingly complex technology requires users to combine
“knowledge in the head” with “knowledge in the world” in more and more
sophisticated ways.

Digital passwords are an especially important example of this effect. While new
technologies make it much easier to store knowledge in the world, doing so makes
the information far less secure, since knowledge in the world is accessible to
anyone in that environment. To protect private information, computer systems
require passwords. Simple passwords were sufficient at first, but the rise of hacking
and the ability to store sensitive information like bank records online quickly
required a new approach to security. Now, most programs have complex password
requirements that use a combination of numbers, letters, and symbols. Some
programs require the password to be changed on a regular basis.

The Design of Everyday Things 43

 Unfortunately, all this added complexity has created less security, not more. The
design of this system does not account for the limits of human memory. Simple
passwords that held personal meaning were easy to remember, but long strings of
random characters are not. To cope, we write them down. We store sensitive
information (like banking information or medical records) in the world, then require
knowledge in the head (a password) to access it. But that knowledge is too complex
to remember, so we put it back into the world. The system has defeated itself.
The most secure systems combine the two sources of knowledge by requiring both
“something you have” and “something you know." A physical object like a key is
knowledge in the world—it doesn’t need to be stored in memory, but can be used by
anyone, not just authorized users. But a security system that requires both a
physical object and a password allows for privacy without putting all the burden on
human memory.

* Short-Term Memory
As the name implies, short-term memory is the automatic storage of recent
information. Short term memory is also called “working memory” because it is the
information we keep in our minds in order to complete any given task.
The information held in short-term memory is constantly being replaced as we
encounter new stimuli, so holding onto any piece of information for more than a
second requires rehearsal, or consistently repeating the information until it’s no
longer needed (like when you hear a phone number spoken aloud and repeat it to
yourself over and over while you search for a pen to write it down).

The science of memory is complicated, but a simplified conceptual model is all we

need for design purposes. Think of short-term memory as five to seven mental
“slots” where recent information is stored. If all the slots are filled when a new piece
of information comes along, it will knock out an older piece of information and take
over that slot. It is possible to keep more information in working memory through the
use of mnemonics, or techniques that enhance memory by making meaning out of
meaningless data.
Guidelines for Designers

Don’t require people to use short-term memory at all if possible, but certainly
not for more than a few seconds or for more than five items (although the

The Design of Everyday Things 44

 average person can store five to seven items in short-term memory, Norman
recommends erring on the side of caution and using three to five as a practical
limit). For example, for computer programs, let users keep relevant information
(like confirmation codes) on screen until they manually exit the window.

Use multiple sensory modalities to convey information (such as audio and

visual, or visual and tactile). The brain processes information from different
sensory channels separately, so one piece of information is less likely to
overwhelm another. This is why GPS devices give audible instructions while the
driver visually focuses on the road.

* Long-Term Memory
If information is important enough or rehearsed often enough, it moves from short-
term memory into long-term memory. Long term memory is more robust, and
memories encoded here do not automatically replace other memories. While we
encode and access short-term memory automatically, it takes time to encode long-
term memories, and it typically takes time to access them later.
We still don’t know exactly how short-term memories become encoded into long-
term memory, but most scientists agree that this process happens during sleep.
This is important for anyone designing a product or system that requires users to
store information in long-term memory—that process typically is not instant, and it
might require several encounters with the information with periods of sleep in
between.
Information stored in long-term memory is much more durable, but there is an
important caveat here: memories are encoded based on our interpretation of
events, not as they really happened. Much like performers reciting epic poetry, we
don’t remember every single detail of an event, but rather the main details and our
subjective interpretation of them. This also means that each time the memory is
recalled, we are recreating it based on that limited information. So each time we
access the memory, we inadvertently change small details of it and then re-encode
that version of events. This process has powerful implications for law and criminal
justice settings, since it demonstrates just how unreliable eyewitness testimony can
be.
Guidelines for Designers

The Design of Everyday Things 45

 Keep formatting consistent across products. For example, while each new
iPhone model introduces new features, the basic layout and mechanics (like
pinching to zoom and locating volume buttons on the left edge) have stayed
consistent. The knowledge of how to use an iPhone is already encoded in
users’ long-term memory, and Apple takes advantage of this to create an
experience where users can feel a satisfying sense of mastery, even with a
brand new product.

Design for the whole experience. Because we encode long-term memories

subjectively, memories formed as part of a positive experience will be
remembered positively, even if the actual information being remembered is
emotionally neutral.

Chapter 3.2: Memory and Design

Chapter 3.2: Memory and Design

The subjective way memories are encoded affects how we retrieve them later on.
Details of an event that were especially meaningful to us might be remembered as
much more important to the overall story than they were at the time. In fact, whether
information is meaningful is one of the biggest factors influencing our ability to
remember it.
Meaningful things are easy to remember. They don’t need to be meaningful to our
personal lives, as long as they have a meaningful relationship to each other, or to
something else we know. Meaning helps us connect the information to a bigger
picture. Arbitrary, unrelated things are much more difficult to remember. This is why
rote learning is so difficult to do—the information being learned has no underlying
structure to provide meaning. Typically, we cope with this by imposing structure of
our own.
For example, the order of letters in the alphabet is arbitrary information. There is no
underlying meaning explaining why C comes after B, except that we collectively
agree that it does. To make this arbitrary sequence easier to learn, we impose
structure in the form of the alphabet song.

Mnemonics are designed for this exact purpose. When learning to read music,
remembering which notes correspond to which lines on the staff is arbitrary.
Imposing the mnemonic “Every Good Boy Does Fine” turns an arbitrary series

The Design of Everyday Things 46

 of notes (“EGBDF”) into a meaningful phrase, making it much easier to
remember.

Another way we turn arbitrary information into meaningful information is through

interpretation. The author gives an example of his friend, Professor Yutaka Sayeki,
learning to use the turn signal on his motorcycle. The signal was mounted on the
left handle bar, and signaled a left turn by pulling the lever backwards and a right
turn by pushing forwards.

At first, Sayeki struggled to map the direction of the signal lever (forward or
back) onto the direction of the signal light (left or right), since the connection
between the two seemed completely arbitrary. To fix this, Sayeki adjusted his
mental model of the turn signal so that the lever corresponded to the direction
the handlebars moved when turning, as opposed to the direction of the
motorcycle itself. Since pulling the left handlebar back turns the motorcycle to
the left, and pushing the left handlebar forward turns the motorcycle to the right,
this connection made sense—the information became meaningful and was then
much easier to remember.

Designers can make this process much easier by creating meaningful controls. For
example, in a traditional car, the turn signal is pushed up to signal right and down to
signal left. This takes advantage of our sense of clockwise and counter-clockwise
direction: If we could extend the motion, the turn signal lever would be like the hand
of a clock, and pushing up on it would ultimately send it to the right.

* Approximate Models
Professor Sayeki’s mental model of the turn signal doesn’t account for all the
mechanics of turning a motorcycle (like that fact that executing a left turn often
means first steering slightly to the right). But the model works—it imposed meaning
on the direction of the signal lever, making it easy to remember and use. For most
everyday situations, approximate models are all we need to successfully interact
with our environment.

We use approximate models all the time, often without realizing it. Mental math is a
great example. For instance, if your job pays weekly and an official form asks for
your monthly income, you need a precise answer. You’d multiply your weekly
income by the number of weeks you work in a year and divide the resulting number

The Design of Everyday Things 47

 by twelve months to get an average monthly income. But most of us would struggle
to do that math without a calculator.

On the other hand, if you want to know your monthly income to determine if you
can afford that new streaming service, you could just multiply your weekly
income by four (the average number of weeks in a month). This mental math is
much easier to do, but the model ignores the fact that not all months have
exactly four weeks, so the answer is not exact—it’s an approximate model.

Even this chapter has relied on approximate models when describing short-term
memory. In reality, there are no “slots” in the brain where information sits, waiting to
be replaced by new information. For neuroscientists, this model is too simplistic to
be useful. But for designers, it gives a close enough explanation of the process to
inform design.

* “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

As we’ve seen, human memory is not a particularly reliable tool, and we are much
more likely to remember something if we transform it from knowledge in the head to
knowledge in the world. This process can have extremely critical consequences, as
in the case of airline pilots. When pilots are preparing to take off or land the plane,
they are also listening to a steady stream of instructions and important information
from air traffic control, most of it delivered rapidly and in technical language.
Because the stakes are so high, pilots are taught to immediately translate this
information into knowledge in the world. They program instruments as the correct
settings are announced and write down any important or unfamiliar information.

Airplane technology is evolving to make this process even easier by relaying this
information digitally, allowing instruments to be set automatically and important
information to be displayed visually. The idea is to create a design that takes as
much burden as possible off the pilots’ memory, which reduces the risk of
dangerous mistakes.

* Reminding
Transferring information from short-term memory into external knowledge is
relatively simple when the information is immediately relevant. But what about
remembering things that haven’t happened yet, like the date and time of a dentist

The Design of Everyday Things 48

 appointment several months from now? That requires prospective memory, or
remembering to do something in the future. We typically think of memory as relating
only to the past, but prospective memory functions in the same way: to avoid
forgetting an item in prospective memory, it must be continually rehearsed or
transformed into knowledge in the world.
How do we remember things that haven’t happened yet? To do this, we need
reminders—external cues that will trigger our memory for an event at precisely the
right time in the future. Effective reminders rely on the concept of memory for the
future, which is our ability to predict future states based on our memory of the past.
So, to create a reminder of that future appointment, you need to remember the date
and time of the appointment itself (prospective memory) as well as what you’re
likely to be doing at that time based on your typical schedule (memory for the
future). This tells you where and when to place the reminder so it will trigger your
memory.
(Some future events can be easily remembered without reminders. The difference
between arbitrary and meaningful information applies here too: While you might
need a reminder for that future appointment, you’ll most likely have no trouble
remembering the date of your upcoming wedding or important presentation.)
Effective reminders have two components: signal and message. The signal alerts
us that there is something to remember; the message tells us what that something
is. For a digital example, imagine entering a reminder into the calendar on your
phone. If you set the date and time for the reminder to alert you, but don’t enter the
name of the event, you’ll be left wondering what on earth you were supposed to
remember when the alert goes off. On the other hand, if you enter the event details
but don’t set an alert to go off at the correct time, the lack of signal means you’re
likely to forget the message exists at all.
Reminders can take several different forms. Physical reminders like a note taped to
the door combine signal (the sight of the note) with message (whatever is written on
it). These types of reminders act as knowledge in the world, removing the need to
rely on memory.
Knowledge in the head, on the other hand, needs to be cued. The message is
there, but without a signal to prompt retrieval, it does us no good. As we move to
increasingly digital formats for getting things done, incorporating appropriate signals
is an important challenge. Massive amounts of information are available to us

The Design of Everyday Things 49

 through technology, but because it’s not immediately visible on screen at all times,
the burden is on our memory to remember that it’s there at all.
Designers can reduce this burden by providing a “roadmap” with meaningful
headings that can serve as memory cues, usually in the form of a menu. Let’s use
digital photo storage as an example. If you store every photo you’ve ever taken in
one folder labeled “Photos," you’re likely to completely forget what specific photos
are in there. But if that folder were broken down into nested subfolders based on
certain categories, a quick glance at the headings would act as a memory cue.
Imagine the difference between searching for a photo of a specific person in one big
“Photos” folder versus a folder with nested subsections that help you narrow the
search to “Photos>2020>Family>Mom’s birthday party."

* Combining Memory With Knowledge in the World

Reminders are not always set up in advance. Sometimes, we can work
collaboratively with others in our environment to remind ourselves of information
we’ve forgotten. For example, if you’re with a group of friends and collectively forget
the name of a famous actress, you might list the name of a few movies she was in,
which reminds one friend of another of her film roles, which in turn reminds another
friend of an award she won. The group circles closer and closer to the answer until
finally someone remembers the correct name. This process is called transactive
memory, in which we combine knowledge from multiple sources to reach an answer
none of those sources could come up with on their own.
Transactive memory applies to more than just groups of people. Imagine the same
scenario where you’ve forgotten the name of a famous actress, but without a group
of people around to help. Instead, you type the name of one of her movies into a
search engine. The first results are about the remake of that film, so you refine the
search further by adding the year the movie was released. Now you’re able to comb
the cast list for the correct film and ultimately discover the name you’ve forgotten.
This type of transactive memory is powerful. The correct answer was in the world,
somewhere on the internet. But in order to retrieve it, the search engine needed
information stored in the user’s memory (the year the film was released). Even an
incredibly powerful machine like the modern computer could not produce the correct
answer alone. (The powerful effects of combining human brain power and modern
technology are explored further in Chapter 7.)

The Design of Everyday Things 50

 * Natural Mapping
The search engine example is an effective combination of knowledge in the head
and knowledge in the world. Not all attempts to combine these sources of
information are quite as successful.

Think back to the discussion of mapping in Chapter 1. Mapping describes the

relationship between controls and the objects they control. Ineffective mapping
requires storing the knowledge of how to operate those controls in long-term
memory, which takes time and effort to retrieve. In contrast, natural mapping takes
advantage of basic properties of physics and psychology to make the control/object
relationship intuitive. In other words, mapping is a tool for putting knowledge into the
world and reducing the burden on memory. The closer the controls are to the object
they control, the more understandable the relationship.

The best-case scenario for natural mapping is controls that are incorporated
into the object itself. Gesture controlled faucets are an example of this: to
operate the faucet, the only object you need to interact with is the faucet itself.

The second best natural mapping approach is to have controls located

immediately next to the object they control. This approach uses proximity to
show the user which controls to use.

The third best natural mapping approach is to create an arrangement of

controls that maps onto the arrangement of objects. For example, in a car, the
driver’s window controls are typically arranged in a way that maps onto the car
windows themselves as seen from a bird’s eye view (so the upper left control
operates the driver’s window, the upper right the passenger seat window, and
so on).

The Stovetop Problem

Think back to the stovetop example of mapping from Chapter 1. This example pops
up often in design textbooks because the problem itself is relatively straightforward,
but the solution is almost never implemented into stove designs. This means that
almost everyone has encountered the issue of trying to figure out which knob
controls which burner.
In the case of stove burners, it isn’t possible to use the best or even second-best
natural mapping strategies, since mounting controls directly onto the burners or in

The Design of Everyday Things 51

 close proximity to them is a major safety hazard. The third best mapping strategy is
relatively intuitive here: If the burners are arranged in a square, the knobs should
also be arranged in a square. But this type of configuration is almost never seen.
Instead, we see layouts like these:

All four of these designs can be found on stovetops currently on the market. The
layout of the burners doesn’t change, but the layout and location of the knobs
change each time. The lack of standardization alone would make things confusing,
but on top of that, each of them requires mentally mapping a one dimensional line
(the controls) onto a two dimensional square (the burners). This requires some
complicated mental gymnastics, and mistakes can easily lead to serious accidents
and injury.
The easiest way to reduce the risk of accidents is through natural mapping.
Effective natural mapping puts the knowledge of how to use the stove completely in
the world rather than in the head. Compare these layout designs to the ones above:

A slight change in layout makes a huge difference. If the solution is so easy, why
does this problem still exist? One major reason is that the people buying appliances

The Design of Everyday Things 52

 are often not the same people who will be using them. As an individual, we typically
only have to replace major appliances like stoves a few times in a lifetime at most,
so we’re more likely to make usability an important factor when choosing a new
model. On the other hand, construction and housing companies often buy
appliances in large quantities to supply newly constructed homes, and are much
more likely to make their decision based on cost and available features. After all, it’s
easy to ignore the usability factor when you’ll most likely never use the appliance
yourself.

* Culture Influences Mapping

Although natural mapping makes user interaction more intuitive, what is considered
intuitive in one culture may be completely different in another. This presents a
particularly tricky problem: Cultural differences impact how people interact with
design, but most of us are so immersed in our own culture that we don’t recognize
the places where our viewpoint might not be universal.
For example, the way we represent time is culturally dependent. People in western
cultures typically think of time as a road stretching out before them. Each individual
person is walking forward on their own road, with the future in front of them and the
past behind them. But this view is not universal. For some cultures, it’s not the
person who moves, but the “road” of time itself, with future events always moving
toward us. Other cultures represent the time line horizontally, with the future either
to the left or the right (typically corresponding to whether the local language reads
right to left or left to right).
Why is this important when it comes to design? As more and more products come
equipped with digital displays, understanding the differences in how people
visualize abstract concepts becomes crucial. The author gives an example from his
experience of giving a talk in Asia with an accompanying slideshow projected onto a
large screen. The remote control for the projector had two buttons arranged
vertically. When it came time for the next slide, Norman pushed the top button—but
the presentation moved backward, not forward.

While Norman was visualizing the presentation as a series of images that he

would move forward through, whoever designed the projector had visualized
that type of presentation as a set of images that users would move toward
themselves. In that case, the lower button (closest to the body) is the obvious

The Design of Everyday Things 53

 choice to bring up the next slide. The two models have a similar structure but
differ in their concept of who or what is actually moving. This difference caused
a brief technical hiccup, but in another setting, such a minor issue could have
powerful consequences.

The question of “Who is moving, the user or the object?” also impacts the way we
read text on a screen. As you read this summary, which direction do you scroll to
keep reading? On modern touchscreens, swiping up with a finger almost always
makes the text scroll down. This is the same action you’d use to move printed
material in real life (like reading a newspaper lying flat on a table and pushing the
newspaper away from you in order to bring the bottom sections into your view).
But there is another way to visualize this. Before the advent of touchscreens,
computer displays used a “moving window” paradigm, where the text was visualized
as static display, and the screen as a small window onto that display that showed a
certain amount of the text at a time. To read more, the window would move, not the
text. In this case, the cursor controlled the window, not the text, so scrolling down
meant physically moving the cursor down, not up.
These examples make it clear that the “right way” to do something depends on our
mental model of it, and mental models can vary by culture. To design a successful
product, designers need to understand how the majority of target users will visualize
the concepts needed to use the product. If designers try to introduce a new
paradigm, users will be confused and frustrated. If this is a widely-implemented
change, the product is not necessarily doomed to fail, but there will be a significant
adjustment period.

Exercise: Redesign Reminders

Exercise: Redesign Reminders

This chapter covers a lot of information, and it can

be difficult to connect it to concrete situations in our
daily lives. This exercise asks you to redesign an
element of your daily life using your new
understanding of memory.

The Design of Everyday Things 54

 Think of a time recently when you created a reminder to help you remember a task
or appointment. This could be any type of reminder—an alert in a phone app, a note
placed somewhere prominent, a loved one you asked to help you remember, or
even a mental association between two situations. What did you need to remember,
and what type of reminder did you use?

In your reminder, what was the signal? What was the message? (Remember, the
signal is your cue to remember something, and the message is what should be
remembered.)

Did your reminder rely more on knowledge in the head or knowledge in the world?
Did this work well for you?

If you were asked to remember the same type of information in the future, would
you choose this type of reminder again? Why or why not?

(BUTTON)
Submit

Chapter 4: Guiding Behavior With Design

Chapter 4: Guiding Behavior With Design

Building on the lessons of the previous chapters, we’ll now explore a new way to
guide behavior with design: constraints. Constraints limit the ways users can
interact with an object. They create affordances, but they also guide users on which
affordances to focus on. There are four main types of constraints: physical, cultural,
semantic, and logical.

* Physical Constraints
Physical constraints are physical qualities of an object that limit the ways it can
interact with users or other objects. The shape and size of a jar lid act as physical
constraints that prevent it from being attached to the wrong jar; different-sized holes

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 on some electrical outlets constrain the way plugs can be connected; the height of a
doorknob constrains the type of people who can use the door.
Physical constraints can be deliberately designed to ensure an object is used
correctly, but this doesn’t always result in increased usability. Cylindrical batteries
are a common example: Although the shapes of each end of the battery are slightly
different, that difference only constrains the electrical circuit, not the placement of
the batteries. This is why most of us have experienced accidentally inserting a
battery backwards and having to pry it out without damaging the terminal.

* Forcing Functions
Forcing functions are physical constraints specifically designed to prevent certain
actions from occurring at the wrong times or in the wrong contexts. Three important
forcing functions are interlocks, lock-ins, and lock-outs.

Interlocks constrain the sequence of interactions with a given device, usually by

blocking potentially dangerous functions until safety measures are in place.
Interlocks are at play when microwaves and dryers automatically turn off when
opened, or when a car won’t shift out of park until the brake is applied.

The “dead man’s switch” function of dangerous machinery like chainsaws and
riding lawn mowers is another common example of an interlock. This spring-
loaded switch requires continuous pressure: If it is released, the device
immediately shuts off, ensuring that dangerous equipment will not run wild if the
user becomes incapacitated.

Lock-ins constrain users to a particular activity, area, or pattern. Physical

barriers like jail cells are lock-ins, as are digital programs that make it difficult for
users to quit out of an application accidentally. Lock-ins can also be more
abstract: When tech companies create products that are only compatible with
products of the same brand, they are locking the user into a continuous pattern
of brand loyalty.

Lock-outs prevent users from entering dangerous areas or performing

dangerous functions. Like the names suggest, lock-ins are designed to keep
people in, while lock-outs are designed to keep people out. Childproof caps on
bottles of medicine or dangerous chemicals are common lock-outs. Home
security systems lock unwanted people out of private areas.

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 * Cultural Constraints
Cultural constraints are the “rules” of society that help us understand how to interact
with our environment. These rules operate through schemas (also called “scripts” or
“frames”): mental models that help us interpret our environment. Schemas help us
navigate new situations based on our knowledge of similar environments.
Imagine you wander into an unfamiliar building in a new city. You see tables all
around, some of them with groups of people sitting and eating. Other people are
carrying trays of food to and from the tables. These people are wearing aprons and
name tags. All of these clues combine to activate the “restaurant” schema in your
head—now you know not only what type of building you’re in, but how to behave
appropriately in the situation.

* Conventions
Schemas help us interpret our environment, but conventions and standards tell us
how to interact with it. In the restaurant example, a schema helped you interpret the
environment by combining the information from your senses and matching that to
an existing mental model of “restaurant." Now that you understand the environment,
you need to choose how to act appropriately within it. For that, you’re more likely to
rely on conventions. Conventions are culturally-dependent agreements about how
things are done. They are social rules that constrain our behavior.

(Shortform note: The distinction between schemas and conventions can be

confusing. Generally speaking, schemas describe how we think, while
conventions describe how we act. But understanding this subtle difference isn’t
crucial for the rest of the book, so don’t worry too much if it seems a bit muddy.)

Conventions also act as cultural constraints that affect how we interpret signifiers
and perceived affordances. Think of a typical doorknob. The knob itself is the same
shape and size as a cupped hand, so “grasping” is an intuitive perceived
affordance. But nothing about the knob itself tells us it should be twisted, or that its
purpose is to open and close doors. Those functions are cultural conventions that
are learned from other people in our environment. To illustrate this, think of a
doorknob mounted on a regular wall. You probably wouldn’t attempt to twist it, or
expect it to open or close the wall, because the knowledge that “knobs open doors,
not walls” is a universal cultural convention.

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 Case Study: Destination-Control Elevators
Conventions are valuable, but they also present a challenge to new technologies.
One form of this is the legacy problem. The legacy problem is the extreme inertia
faced by any design that attempts to revolutionize a fundamental product or service.
Drastically changing the design of a common item (like an elevator or a house key)
requires a complete logistical overhaul. The social and economic cost of
implementing the new design is too high, so the existing design (the legacy) will win
out almost every time, regardless of how difficult it is to use.
A classic example of the legacy problem is the use of destination-control elevators
in large buildings. These elevators only travel to set floors and have no panel of
buttons inside for passengers to select a floor. Instead, a control panel in the lobby
directs users to the correct elevator based on their desired floor.

For example, in a building with thirty stories and ten elevators, each elevator
would stop at three predetermined floors. If you wanted to go to the fifth floor,
you’d find the control panel, enter “5," and be directed to the elevator that
services that floor (perhaps “Elevator B," since the elevators themselves are
typically given non-numerical labels to avoid confusion).

For large buildings with many elevators (like hotels or office buildings), this design is
far more efficient than the traditional elevator, where the person going to the highest
floor has to wait while the elevator stops at every other passenger’s desired floor in
between. In spite of this, destination-control elevators are still rare. Cultural
convention is to blame here, since implementing this new system would require
overhauling a cultural convention about how elevators work. For designers and
developers, the increased efficiency was not worth the cultural taboo of violating
convention, and the legacy of less-efficient elevators won out.
The lesson of destination-control elevators is that consistency is important, because
there will always be cultural resistance to change. Typically, it’s not worth fighting
ingrained conventions for small changes. But if there is a revolutionary new way of
doing things that is objectively better, that change needs to be implemented
universally to avoid confusion.

* Standards

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 Conventions are informal rules governing behavior. Standards are more official and
can be applied cross-culturally. When a convention is codified into law or written into
the official literature of an industry, it becomes a standard. Standards are typically
very slow to develop, since they require so many people to officially agree to one
set of overarching rules. For example, when cars were first adopted into popular
use, there were no official traffic laws. Informal conventions arose quickly (for
example, what side of the street to drive on), but these were not enough to reduce
the enormous accident rate. Eventually, these conventions were written into official
standards.

Laws are not the only official standards. Cars must be produced and operated
according to certain laws, but the transportation industry as a whole has its own
set of official standards, as does each specific automotive company.

The purpose of standardization is to alleviate confusion. The modern environment is

complex by nature, with so much information available at all times and so many
different tasks needing attention. Complexity is a fact of life, but confusion is a
design problem (these definitions are addressed in more depth in the author’s book
Living with Complexity). Easily discoverable and understandable designs can
alleviate confusion by providing a clear conceptual model.
When design itself is not enough to avoid confusion, standardization is an important
tool. Norman calls standardization “the principle of desperation." For design
questions where there is no way to put the knowledge of how to use something into
the world, standardization at least ensures that everyone only needs to learn how to
use the device once, since that knowledge will transfer to every other encounter
with that type of device.
For example, telling time on analog clocks is not intuitive. We have to be taught the
meanings of each hand. But imagine how much harder this process would be if
there were no standard design for clock faces. Try it out on the nonstandard clock
below.
alt_text
Establishing standards is not an easy task. Different groups will have different ideas
about the proper standard, and compromise is not always possible when those
ideas are fundamentally different. Beyond that, companies who are already
manufacturing whatever design is chosen as the new standard will have an edge

The Design of Everyday Things 59

 (since they won’t need to spend time or resources changing the production
process), so corporate representatives often lobby hard for whatever model they
already produce.

* Semantic and Logical Constraints

(Shortform note: Norman pays much less attention to these types of constraints in
this chapter, so they have been collapsed into one section.)
Semantic constraints dictate whether information is meaningful. They help us filter
the information in our environment and decide what is important. If you’re driving on
a crowded city street, you might see colorful lights all around you. But you
automatically pay more attention to red lights on the back of other cars (brake
lights), or tri-colored lights that hang over an intersection (traffic lights). In this
situation, the combination of color and location conveys semantic information so
that you know which lights to focus on and which to ignore.
Meanings can change over time, or in response to new technologies. If self-driving
cars become widespread, we may no longer need to pay much attention to brake
lights on other cars, and future generations who grow up with that technology may
not associate any particular meaning with red lights at all.
Logical constraints make use of fundamental logic to guide behavior. For example, if
you take apart the plumbing beneath a sink drain to fix a leak, then discover an
extra part leftover after you’ve reassembled the pipes, you know you’ve done
something wrong because, logically, all the parts that came out should have gone
back in.

The natural mapping demonstrated by the stovetop example earlier in Chapter 3 is

made possible by logical constraints. If controls are arranged in the same shape as
the objects they control, it makes logical sense that each control will correspond to
the object in the matching location.

* Discoverability
Physical, cultural, semantic, and logical constraints aid in discoverability. This
section applies these concepts to common objects like doors, switches, and
faucets.

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 * Norman Doors
Doors are infamous examples of bad design that we encounter in everyday life. In
the first edition of this book, Norman laid out the concept of “discoverability” and
showed how a huge portion of modern doors violated this principle. This section of
the book was revolutionary in the design community, and was the first exposure
many designers had to the idea of discoverability and the importance of user
experience. The door example became so popular that confusing, poorly-designed
doors are now often referred to as “Norman doors."
In contrast to Norman doors, modern emergency doors are examples of
discoverability done right. In the past, emergency fire exit doors often opened
inward. People rushing to get out of the building instinctively pushed against the
doors and often became trapped. Now, the law requires emergency doors to open
outward, and to be equipped with a panic bar. Unlike a regular door handle or a
smaller metal plate, a panic bar spans almost the entire width of the door. It’s
immediately visible and doesn’t require dexterity or precise movements to open. In
other words, panic bars are highly discoverable.

* Switches
Switches are another notorious offender when it comes to discoverability. The
design and placement of switches need to provide two types of information: what

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 type of object they control, and which specific object in the room corresponds to that
specific switch. Traditionally, switches for all the lights in a room are grouped into
one panel. This makes it easy to control everything from one spot but gets
confusing quickly if the switches aren’t arranged logically. For public spaces with
many different users, this may require adding homemade labels as signifiers.

Is there a better way? The author recommends two solutions: a natural mapping
approach (as discussed in Chapter 3) or an activity-centered approach. In the
stovetop example, natural mapping is fairly straightforward, since all four controls
and all four burners are in view simultaneously. For a lighting system where not all
the lights are in view from any one spot, an overhead diagram of the room or entire
floor makes mapping much easier.

The Design of Everyday Things 62

 Another option to streamline multiple controls is an activity-centered approach,
where controls are grouped by activity rather than by type. Lecture halls are a great
candidate for this approach. Typical lecture halls have all the light controls grouped
together on one panel, all the projector controls on another, and any other system
controls randomly placed elsewhere. An activity-centered approach would instead
group these controls based on activities, with options like “lecture mode” or “video
mode." For example, in “lecture mode," the projector screen would lower into place,
the projector itself would turn on and allow for presentation controls, and the lights
would calibrate to illuminate both the screen and the speaker.

One caveat with activity-centered approaches is that it is impossible to predict

every activity that will happen in a space. There needs to be a way to override
the system to allow each control to be adjusted independently for those cases.

* Faucets
You’ve probably encountered a faucet that didn’t immediately work the way you
expected it to. Maybe the hot and cold taps were switched, or the drain mechanism
had no visible controls, or the knobs looked like they should be twisted when in
reality they needed to be pushed. Nearly every residential and commercial building
has at least one faucet, so why haven’t we found a universal standard that gets it
right?

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 The most basic purpose of a faucet is to allow the user to control both temperature
and flow rate of the water. Controlling flow rate is relatively simple, but temperature
control involves two separate pipes (one for hot water, one for cold). So the user
has just two needs, but the design of the plumbing system requires three separate
operations to control flow rate, hot water, and cold water. Designing a control that
makes it easy and intuitive to meet two separate goals through three separate
requirements is more difficult than it seems.
There are many ways to address this problem, which is why we encounter so many
different faucet designs on a regular basis. Almost all of these designs will have
either one or two controls.

Possible solutions with one control:

Control only temperature, keeping flow rate constant.

Control only flow rate, keeping temperature constant.

Control only on/off, keeping both temperature and flow rate constant (as in the
case of automatic faucets).

One integrated for both temperature and flow rate (for example, a knob that
controls temperature when twisted left or right, and flow rate when pushed in or
pulled out).

Possible solutions with two controls:

One control for hot water, one for cold (flow rate is controlled by the degree to
which each tap is opened).

One control for temperature, one for flow rate.

The fact that there are fewer controls than necessary functions puts the burden on
the user to figure out which control does what. For example, for designs with one
control for hot water and one for cold, how do you know which is which, and how do
you know how to turn each control on or off?
Cultural conventions can be helpful here—in most of the world, the left control is for
hot water, the right is for cold. In the United States and the United Kingdom, though,
this rule is considered more of a loose guideline at best.

The design of the handle also presents a problem. For knobs that need to be
twisted, we have another convention to help: Any mechanism with a screw thread is

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 tightened by turning clockwise and loosened by turning counterclockwise. We
intuitively think of knobs as screwed-on caps blocking water from flowing out of the
pipe, so we understand that they need to be turned counterclockwise to open
(unlike temperature controls, this is a universal convention).
But what about lever-style controls? Do we push away from us, since that is
technically turning counterclockwise? Or do we pull toward us, envisioning the tap
as a push/pull mechanism instead of a screw mechanism? If the levers work the
same as knobs, pushing the right one away from us would increase flow rate, but
doing the same on the left would decrease flow rate by turning the screw
mechanism the opposite way.
Solutions where the left and right controls do different things when used the same
way assume that we always use two hands to operate the controls. But what if
you’re holding something in one arm, or otherwise have use of only one hand? In
that situation, you now have to remember which control gets turned in which
direction. The potential for error is high.
Designs with one control present similar problems. When one control is used for two
separate functions, how do we know which does which? Does turning change the
temperature, or the flow rate? If it’s temperature, does turning clockwise make it
hotter or colder?

The fact that there are so many possible configurations for faucet controls means
most of us resort to trial and error. While not ideal, this usually allows us to figure
things out pretty quickly and go about our day. But when feedback is not immediate
—when moving the control doesn’t create an immediate change in temperature or
flow rate—we have no confirmation that the system registered our input, so we
repeat it. This is a particular problem with shower controls, as the distance between
the control and the faucet causes a slight delay in feedback (which is how we end

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 up cranking the heat up in a freezing cold shower, only to be scalded moments
later).

* Using Sounds as Signifiers

As we’ve seen, signifiers play a huge role in discoverability. But signifiers are not
always visual. Sound signifiers are especially useful in situations like driving
because they don’t interfere with visual attention. On the other hand, sound
signifiers can be distracting if not properly designed. It’s also difficult to direct sound
to just one person without using headphones, which presents a privacy concern in
some settings.
Using sounds as signifiers is a powerful tool, but tricky to get right. To be effective,
sounds have to be inherently meaningful, not arbitrary. Users should be able to
understand them without knowledge of the device. For example, the crunching
sound of car tires on a gravel road combined with the rumble of an engine instantly
tells us not only that something is coming toward us, but what that something is (a
car), how it’s traveling (on gravel), and the direction it’s coming from. If the car were
able to float above the gravel and instead emit a consistent beeping, we’d have no
idea how to interpret that sound without previous knowledge of that type of car.
Case Study: Electric Vehicles
We may not need to worry about floating cars just yet, but adding artificial sounds to
vehicles is already an important safety concern in the case of electric cars, which
are almost silent at lower speeds. While this silence can be a perk for the driver, it
poses a major threat to pedestrians. Blind people in particular are at risk, since they
use sound as the primary signal to determine whether it’s safe to cross the street.
Silent vehicles also pose a danger to sighted pedestrians if they are distracted
(looking at a phone, for example). To address this design issue, electric car
manufacturers add artificially produced sound.
But deciding which sounds to add is more difficult than it seems. Some companies
initially tried to artificially mimic the sound of gasoline engines. This is called
skeuomorphic design, or adding features of older designs to new technology for
aesthetic (not functional) reasons (for example, digital “save” icons in the shape of
floppy discs or manilla file folders). Skeuomorphic design can ease transition to new
technology and provide helpful signifiers, although some designers argue it hinders
creativity.

The Design of Everyday Things 66

 On the other hand, some companies designed unique artificial sounds to use as
brand identifiers. But this presents a new challenge: how would blind pedestrians
know the sound they’re hearing is from an approaching car without memorizing
every brand’s unique sound?
Ultimately, various government bodies created sets of research-based standards
that ultimately allow each manufacturer to create their own sounds, so long as those
sounds meet certain safety requirements. Specific standards vary by country, but
they all include three main requirements:

Sounds need to alert pedestrians to the presence of a vehicle.

Sounds need to be orienting—they need to make it easy for pedestrians to

figure out which direction the car is heading, how far away it is, and how fast it’s
going.

Sounds should not annoy pedestrians, since annoying sounds tend to be

especially distracting.

Exercise: Identify Physical Constraints

Exercise: Identify Physical Constraints

Physical constraints are so common in daily life that

they can become invisible. This exercise will help
you practice identifying physical constraints in
everyday items.
Take a look at the physical device you’re using to read this summary (like a tablet,
phone, or computer). Are there any parts that act as physical constraints?
(Remember, physical constraints limit the ways you can physically interact with an
object.)

If you found multiple physical constraints, choose just one to focus on for now. Why
do you think the designer chose to incorporate this specific constraint? What actions
do you think they were trying to prevent?

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 Do you think the designer was successful? Did they effectively prevent the
unwanted action?

Ultimately, does this physical constraint make the device easier to use? If you were
asked to edit this constraint to make it easier to understand and use, what changes
would you make?

(BUTTON)
Submit

Chapter 5: Human Error

Chapter 5: Human Error

In this chapter, we’ll break down different types of errors that can happen when
humans interact with technology. These errors can take the form of either “slips” or
“mistakes," each of which can be broken down further into different categories. The
first edition of this book, published in 1988, included many more categories of slips
and mistakes, but here they have been pared down to only those most relevant to
design. The chapter ends with recommendations for turning knowledge of human
error into specific design guidelines.

* The Error of “Human Error”

Industry professionals estimate that between 75 and 95 percent of industrial
accidents are attributed to human error. But if we think of “error” as something that
goes wrong in a particular system, how is it possible for the vast majority of events
in that system to be considered “errors”? Error, by definition, should be the
exception rather than the rule. In other words, what we think of as human errors are
more likely outcomes of a system that has been unintentionally designed to create
error, rather than prevent it.
If there’s an underlying cause of these accidents, why do we write them off as
human error? One reason is that people analyzing the incident tend to stop as soon
as they find someone to blame. This offers a quick and convenient “solution”:
identify who made the mistake, punish them for it, and move on. But when errors

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 stem from underlying design issues, punishment doesn’t prevent the same thing
from happening again.

* How Do We Define Error?

What, specifically, counts as an error? The term “error” applies to any action that
differs from the general understanding of appropriate behavior. In this context,
“error” is not the same as “accident”: an error is an incorrect behavior that may or
may not lead to an accident (an event that causes harm). Errors can be classified
as either “slips” or “mistakes."

A “slip” is an error of execution. Slips happen when we have the right goal for
an action, but end up performing a different action without thinking (like
accidentally putting a chopstick in your drink instead of a straw). Slips happen
unconsciously—they are errors of doing.

A “mistake” is an error of evaluation that happens when we execute an action

correctly, but our goal, plan, or understanding of the situation is wrong. Mistakes
happen at the conscious level—they are errors of thinking.

The defining difference between slips and mistakes is that slips happen
subconsciously while mistakes involve conscious choices. Slips and mistakes can
be further broken down into subtypes. Mistakes can be broken down into
knowledge-based, rule-based, and memory-lapse mistakes. Slips can be classified
as either memory-lapse or action-based. Action-based slips can then be broken
down further into three types. Each of these subcategories will be defined in the
following sections.

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 * Slips
Most everyday errors are slips, not mistakes. Remember, the execution phase of
action is mostly subconscious. We decide what action we want to take, and we see
the results, but the actual process between thinking and doing is below our level of
awareness. Slips happen during that subconscious transition from thinking to doing.
The fact that slips happen subconsciously and look different for different people
leaves a lot open to interpretation. Sigmund Freud proposed that slips were brief
glimpses into someone’s subconscious mind. (Shortform note: This is where we get
the phrase “Freudian slip.") Most modern psychologists agree that slips are more
formulaic and unlikely to reveal hidden secrets.
Counterintuitively, slips happen more frequently to experts than beginners.
Beginners use conscious thought to work through every step of a task, so the
chance for subconscious slips is low. But experts have overlearned the same task
after years of practice, so the process no longer requires conscious attention and is
executed subconsciously.
There are two classes of slips: memory-lapse and action-based.

Memory-lapse slips involve simple forgetting, like forgetting your phone at home
or driving away with your coffee cup still resting on top of the car.

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 Action-based slips involve simple human blunders, like pouring cream into your
coffee and then putting the coffee cup in the refrigerator rather than the cream.
The goal of putting cream back into the refrigerator was correct, but the action
was mistakenly applied to the coffee instead.

Action-Based Slips
Action-based slips can be broken down even further into subtypes, including
capture slips, description-similarity slips, and mode errors.

Capture slips happen when something we intend to do overlaps with something

we frequently do (or did recently), and the overlap makes us accidentally switch
to the more familiar task. This is what happens when we are “on autopilot." If
you’re driving to a friend’s house, but the first half of the drive is identical to the
route you take to work every day, you’re likely to drive right past the turn for
your friend’s house. The familiar activity (driving to work) has captured the new
activity (driving to a friend’s house).

The opportunity for the familiar activity to capture the new activity happens
when we forget that we’re supposed to be focusing on the new activity. The
element of forgetting means that capture slips can also be classified as
memory-lapse errors.

Description-similarity slips happen when two objects are so similar that we

mistakenly perform the right action on the wrong object. If there are two
identical switches mounted above your kitchen sink, accidentally hitting the
switch for the garbage disposal instead of the kitchen light is a description-
similarity slip.

Mode errors happen when there is one control for multiple functions, such as a
universal remote. If you want to turn the TV volume up, but the remote is set to
“auxiliary mode," you may accidentally turn up the volume on a different device.

Mode errors can also have much more serious consequences, as in the case of
an airplane crash caused by a mode error involving the auto-pilot system. The
same instrument was used to control both vertical speed and angle of descent,
so toggling between the two variables required switching modes. In this case,
the pilot entered the correct value for angle of descent, but he did not realize
the equipment was still set to the vertical speed mode.

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 * Mistakes
Mistakes are the result of conscious choices based on faulty information,
misinterpretation, or simple forgetting. Mistakes can be classified as knowledge-
based, rule-based, or memory-lapse mistakes (not to be confused with memory-
lapse slips).

Knowledge-based mistakes happen when we have incomplete or incorrect

information to work with, leading us to misunderstand the situation and
therefore respond inappropriately. Knowledge-based mistakes usually happen
in novel situations where we have no applicable prior knowledge to pull from.

Rule-based mistakes, on the other hand, happen in familiar contexts where

we’re aware of the “rules” of how to act. These mistakes happen in three ways:
misinterpreting the situation and consequently selecting the wrong rule;
selecting the correct rule, but the rule itself creates problems; or selecting the
right rule, but misinterpreting the results.

The common tendency to set thermostats to extreme temperature in the hopes

that it will heat or cool the room faster is an example of the first type of rule-
based mistake, based on a faulty conceptual model of the heating system.

Memory-lapse mistakes are different from memory-lapse slips. In memory-lapse

mistakes, the lapse in memory happens during the goal, plan, or evaluation
phase, not during execution. For example, if you get distracted while searching
for something in various boxes, you might forget which boxes you’ve already
checked and end up mistakenly rechecking some of them.

* What Causes Errors?

The next step in addressing system errors is to determine the underlying cause.
Broadly speaking, there are two main causes of error: system designs that fail to
account for basic human traits, and the social environment of the users in those
systems.

* Systems Built for Perfect Humans

Every person is different, but we all have nearly identical underlying needs and
tendencies. We don’t focus well when we’re tired, hungry, bored, or upset; we can

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 only remember a small amount of new information at a time without a chance to
absorb it; we struggle to focus intently for long stretches of time. These are normal
human traits, but when something goes wrong, they’re quickly reclassified as
“errors." In order to truly prevent dangerous accidents, we need machines and
systems that not only function properly, but are designed in a way that accounts for
human nature.
All of these qualities come into play in cases of interruption. Interruption is a major
cause of error. As a rule, humans struggle to efficiently pivot between different types
of tasks. Most of us have experienced being interrupted while working intently, only
to turn back to the task and think “what was I just doing?” Important information can
be lost this way, especially when systems are designed for continuous focus
(automatic session timeouts on certain website pages are an example of this).
Multitasking is also a form of interruption, since we are asking the brain to quickly
switch focus between multiple tasks.
Like all causes of error, interruptions and multitasking are especially dangerous in
high-risk environments like medicine and aviation. To prevent interruption, the
Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) requires a “Sterile Cockpit Configuration” during
take-off and landing, meaning pilots are prohibited from discussing anything other
than the task at hand.
Even systems that are designed for humans and machines to work in tandem can
have problems. Norman calls this “the paradox of automation," where technology
can easily take over tasks that are simple for humans but fails on complex tasks
when humans need it most. We learn to rely on technology to the point that we no
longer monitor the situation, so when the system fails, it does so with no warning
and often with major consequences.

* The Social Context of Error

The social environment plays a massive role in understanding error. In corporate
environments, economic pressure is often the culprit. The larger the system, the
more expensive it is to shut down even temporarily to investigate and fix errors. The
pressure to keep things running as usual is called time stress, which is a major
cause of accidents.
Social and economic pressures played a critical role in the Tenerife airport disaster,
a 1977 crash in the Canary Islands that remains the deadliest accident in aviation

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 history. The accident involved two planes: one taking off before receiving clearance,
the other taxiing down the runway at the wrong time due to miscommunication with
air traffic control. The first plane had been rerouted and delayed, and the captain
decided to take off early to get ahead of a heavy fog rolling in, ignoring the
objections of the first officer. The crew of the second plane questioned the order
from air traffic controllers to taxi on the runway, but it obeyed anyway. Social
hierarchy and economic pressure to keep things moving led both crews to make
critical mistakes, ultimately costing 583 lives.
Why should designers care about social context? Although it may not seem
obvious, social pressures are a design issue. They affect the way we think, feel, and
behave, ultimately influencing how we interact with the environment. Beyond that,
social systems themselves are often the product of design, since they are shaped
by institutional rules, hiring practices, traditions, and choices.
Finding the Root Cause
When accidents happen in industrial settings, a root cause analysis is usually
performed. If the cause is technology-related, there is a full-scale investigation into
the root problem, and engineers continue testing until the problem has been
designed out. But if human error is discovered, the investigation usually stops
immediately. Someone is held accountable and the system moves on unchanged.
Aviation history provides an example here too, this time of a 2010 crash involving a
US Air Force fighter jet pilot. The particular type of plane the pilot was flying at the
time had a history of malfunction that caused oxygen deprivation for the pilot. The
official Air Force investigation into the crash concluded that the cause was human
error—the pilot had failed to recognize the problem and correct the dive. Years later,
the Department of Defense reanalyzed the case and concluded that, while the Air
Force report was technically correct, it stopped before asking the crucial question:
why didn’t the pilot notice or correct the problem? Given the nature of the crash and
the history of the plane, it’s likely the pilot was already unconscious due to lack of
oxygen. Is that human error?
One tool for more effective root cause analyses is the “Five Whys," developed by
Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Industries. As the name suggests, Toyoda’s
idea was to ask “why?’ five times in order to find the true root of a problem. In
reality, the number can vary, but the core idea is to push past the initial answer to a
problem to find underlying causes. This technique is still in use today at Toyota.

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 Even when a true root cause of an accident is determined, there is always
pushback to the idea of changing the system, since change is difficult and often
costly. There is also a cultural element here: we are so used to the idea of human
error that people deemed responsible for accidents usually agree that they were,
even if other people have made the same mistake. This makes it hard to reframe as
system error.
Deliberate Error
Sometimes, we choose to deliberately ignore a certain rule, or do things we know
we shouldn’t do. These infractions tend to be seen as minor until tragedy happens.
Most drivers have driven over the speed limit at some point—this is regarded as
normal behavior. But when a crash happens due to excessive speed, the driver is
blamed for the same behavior.
Why do we ignore rules, even when it’s dangerous? In corporate environments,
there are often two sets of rules: the formal rules that are written into employee
contracts and adhere to the required laws, and the informal social rules that
determine what is actually expected of each employee. These rules often conflict to
the degree that doing a job well (satisfying informal expectations) requires violating
some of the formal rules. The more employees break the rules, the better they
appear to perform, which reinforces the rulebreaking behavior. Social expectations
can make us more likely to make mistakes.
Social Pressure and Error Reporting
When errors inevitably do occur, social pressures affect whether we report them
properly. Fear of judgment or repercussions stops us from reporting both our own
errors and errors made by others. But identifying errors as they occur is crucial for
preventing them from escalating into major problems. How can companies combat
the stigma against reporting errors?
Once again, Toyota’s manufacturing division offers a helpful example. Part of their
error-reduction strategy is Jidoka, or “automation with a human touch." In this
philosophy, error is an expected part of the manufacturing process and should be
addressed immediately, even if it means shutting down an entire production line.
Employees are expected to report errors immediately and can face repercussions
for not reporting them, which combats social pressure to remain quiet.

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 Toyota engineers are also responsible for the idea of poka-yoke, or “error proofing,"
typically through constraints. Covering emergency switches so they can’t be
accidentally activated, attaching physical guides to machines to ensure parts are
aligned correctly, and designing parts with asymmetrical attachments are all
examples of poka-yoke.
Another example of effectively combating social barriers to error reporting is the
NASA Aviation Safety Reporting system. This system is voluntary and records are
stored without identifying information, so pilots don’t have to worry about
repercussions from their employer or the FAA. Beyond that, NASA employees
analyze the submissions and provide reports of common sources of error to the
FAA and individual airlines, ultimately improving aviation safety across the entire
industry.

* How Can Designers Minimize Errors?

Although it’s not possible to eliminate errors completely, thoughtful design can
reduce the frequency or severity of those errors. The first step in that process is
detecting when and where errors occur.

* Detecting Error
A truly error-proof design makes it easy to detect errors before they become
dangerous. Doing this requires understanding how we notice errors in the first
place, and more importantly, why we sometimes fail to notice them.
In general, slips are easier to detect than mistakes. Detecting simple errors like
action-based slips is typically easy—if you accidentally put your keys in the freezer,
you’re likely to realize it pretty quickly. Memory-lapse slips are harder to detect until
something cues retrieval of the memory (for example, not realizing you left your
wallet at home until you need to pay for gas).
Mistakes are difficult to detect because they are conscious choices. By definition,
we usually don’t recognize mistakes right away because we genuinely believe we’re
making the right choice as we’re making it. Mistakes only become apparent later,
when something goes wrong and the cause is traced back to the original mistake.
One reason we don’t catch mistakes earlier is the natural human tendency to
explain away minor deviations from the norm. The author tells a story of driving with

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 his family to a ski resort in California and passing several billboards for Las Vegas
hotels. The family agreed that advertising on billboards located hours away from
Las Vegas must be an odd marketing strategy and carried on with their journey, not
realizing until two hours later that they’d missed a turn and were mistakenly headed
straight toward Las Vegas. We’re much more likely to notice novel information in our
environment, but once we have an explanation, it’s no longer novel. This explains
why the author’s family was able to ignore all the other Las Vegas advertisements
they passed before finally realizing their mistake.
In the aftermath of an accident, the chain of events leading up to it often seems
obvious. This is the power of hindsight bias, or the tendency to estimate our ability
to have predicted a certain outcome before it happened. We wonder how anyone
could have missed the signs of an important error when they seem so obvious—in
reality, without the benefit of hindsight, we’d most likely have missed them too.
One way to improve error detection is with checklists. Checklists are helpful tools,
but they need to be designed with social influences in mind. Having multiple people
run through checklists helps in error proofing, but this should always take the form
of two people working simultaneously, not sequentially. Having one person run
through a checklist now and another person double check things later can actually
lead to more errors, since there is a tendency to let things slide, knowing someone
else is likely to catch the mistake later. But when everyone takes this attitude, errors
quickly add up. (Shortform note: To learn how to correctly use checklists, read our
summary of The Checklist Manifesto (https://www.shortform.com/app/book/the-
checklist-manifesto/1-page-summary) .)

* Understanding How Accidents Happen

There is rarely only one cause of an accident. More frequently, accidents are the
result of a number of conditions lining up in a particular way. James Reason, an
accident researcher, calls this “the Swiss cheese model." Think of each slice of
cheese as a condition affecting a certain task (for example, weather). The holes in
each slice are all the possible configurations of that condition (in the weather
example, this would mean a hole for rain, a hole for snow, a hole for bright sun, and
so on).
For accidents and errors to occur, the holes in several slices have to line up
perfectly. If the hole in any one slice doesn’t line up, the event can’t happen.

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 In a car accident, for example, the four slices above might represent weather,
alertness of the driver, condition of the brakes, and speed. If the holes line up
perfectly—if it’s raining, the driver is sleep deprived, the brakes are worn out, and
the driver is speeding—an accident is likely. But if any of those holes didn’t line up
(like if the driver were more alert or the brakes were new), the accident could likely
have been avoided.
To prevent accidents, we need to prevent the holes lining up. There are three main
ways to do this:

First, create more conditions that must be met in order for a product to function
properly (this adds more slices of cheese, making it statistically less likely that
holes will line up).

Second, error-proof each condition as much as possible (this reduces the

number or size of holes in each slice).

Third, include feedback at every stage (this alerts the user if certain holes are
beginning to line up, giving them a chance to stop the process before an
accident occurs).

* Specific Guidelines for Designers

How can we create products and services that minimize errors, especially
dangerous ones? Norman suggests some concrete ways:

Understand the factors that contribute to errors and identify which ones are
possible to control.

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 Make the system resilient. A certain degree of human error is unavoidable, but
a single error should not be able to cause a chain reaction that leads to
disaster.

Make the “undo” function easy to access and available at every possible step.

For actions that cannot be undone, require multiple confirmations that the user
wants to proceed with that action. This should be paired with a clear image of
the specific item being acted on (to prevent such mistakes as deleting the
wrong file).

Use error messages to present users with guidance on how to fix the problem.

Remember that most errors don’t require completely starting over. Make it
easier for users to fix a single step instead of the entire chain of actions.

Use constraints to prevent incorrect actions.

Incorporate “sensibility checks."

Machines follow commands as long as they are in the correct format,

regardless of whether they make logical sense. This leads to errors and even
tragedy, particularly in medical environments (for example, an x-ray machine
that is not error-proofed will allow a technician to mistakenly enter a command
for a lethal dose of radiation). Error-proof technology is pre-programmed to
understand the limits of each value, and will alert when a value is entered
outside the acceptable range.

Use frequent, effective feedback to prevent slips (for example, in hospitals, both
prescription labels and patient ID bracelets are scanned before administering
any medicine to ensure that the right person is getting the right drug).

* Is Design Always the Answer?

Unfortunately, design only goes so far, and there is still such a thing as “real” human
error. This is especially true in cases where an activity can have catastrophic results
if something goes wrong, but the likelihood of something going wrong in any one
particular case is relatively low. When we know there’s a one in a million chance of
something terrible happening, we assume we’re safe. The problem, of course, is
that one person in that million will be wrong. We see this sense of invincibility at

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 play when people deliberately make risky choices, like ignoring safety measures in
order to get a job done faster, or driving after drinking.
However, even in cases that appear to be pure human error, there is often a design
element at play—specifically, the design of systems. For example, we know that a
sleep-deprived doctor is far more likely to make critical errors than a well-rested
doctor. Yet hospital procedures still frequently have doctors working dangerously
long shifts with little to no sleep. If a doctor in such a hospital makes an error, is it
her fault? Or is it the fault of the complex system that required such long working
hours in the first place?
Thankfully, some industries have adjusted the design of their systems to ensure
employees are in top form before performing potentially dangerous operations. In
aviation, pilots are only permitted to fly a certain number of hours without rest, but
they must complete a minimum number of flying hours to keep their license active.
This ensures that pilots only fly when they’re able to do so safely, and also that they
remain in good practice. This kind of preventative strategy is called resilience
engineering.
Resilience Engineering
Preventative approaches to safety are especially important in industries where
errors could lead to particularly disastrous effects, like medicine, transportation, and
electrical power systems. Resilience engineering focuses on building robust
systems that can withstand any complications they might face, whether from human
error, system breakdown, or external forces like natural disasters.
The resilience engineering approach assumes that errors are inevitable, that people
perform differently under extreme stress, and that the areas where systems are
most vulnerable to error are constantly changing to reflect a changing environment.
In practice, resilience engineering involves several processes. These assumptions
give rise to three of the main tenets of resilience engineering.

Focus on more than products. Consider all the systems involved in making,
selling, and using the products (including social systems).

Test under real-life conditions. For computerized systems, this might mean
shutting down parts of the system without warning to test backup functions as
well as employee response under real-life stress.

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 Test continuously, not as a means to an end. Systems are constantly evolving,
so testing only after major changes are implemented is not enough to ensure
safety.

Exercise: Identify System Errors

Exercise: Identify System Errors

This chapter discussed the ways that systems are

often designed without human needs in mind. Let’s
connect this to your own experience.
In your field of work, is there a common error that seems to happen over and over,
either to you or to colleagues?

If you experienced this error personally, did you blame yourself at the time? If you
haven’t experienced this error, do you think you would blame yourself if it happened
in the future?

Now, think about the error in light of what you learned in this chapter. Is there an
underlying cause? (Remember, this could be the design of a physical object, but
also company culture, work schedules, digital programs, and so on.)

Let’s use the idea behind “the five whys” to push this thinking even further. Keep
asking yourself “why” until you get back to a fundamental issue underlying all the
others. How many “whys” did it take to find the source?

(BUTTON)
Submit

Chapter 6: Design Thinking

Chapter 6: Design Thinking

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 “Design thinking” is the process of examining a situation to discover the root
problem, exploring possible solutions to that problem, testing those solutions, and
making improvements based on those tests. This process is iterative, which means
it is repeated as many times as necessary, each time with slight improvements
based on previous iterations.
Design thinking is an important part of the philosophy of human-centered design.
This chapter describes two models for thinking about the process of design thinking
and compares these approaches to the traditional design process. But these
approaches represent the ideal, and they’re not always feasible in practice. The
chapter ends with a discussion of the practical constraints that prevent designers
from working through each step of the design thinking process in full.
(Shortform note: Chapters 6 and 7 are new to the 2013 edition.)

* The Design Thinking Process

Design thinking has two phases: finding the right problem and finding the right
solution. Each of the two phases has two steps. The entire process is often
described using “the four D’s”: discover, define, develop, deliver.
The first step in the design process is discovering the problem. This seems like it
would be easy, since designers are typically hired to solve a particular problem. But
the problems designers are asked to solve are often downstream effects of the
“real” problem. In other words, designers are hired to address symptoms, but good
designers will go beyond that and dig into the root cause (tools like root cause
analysis and “The Five Whys” are especially useful at this stage).
The next step is defining the problem. In the “discover” phase, design teams will
brainstorm all the factors that could be influencing the problem, then investigate
each of those factors to see which are most relevant. This helps the team decide on
the actual problem they will attempt to solve.
Once the real problem is discovered and defined, designers can begin developing
solutions. This is the part of the process that most people picture when they imagine
designers at work—a flurry of new ideas, rapid sketches, and rough prototypes.
Instead of committing to a solution right away, good designers brainstorm as many
solutions as possible, including ideas that are obviously not feasible. Even a

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 seemingly ridiculous solution might have an underlying principle that ends up
guiding the real design.
Lastly, designers will choose the most promising solution and refine it into final form
by continuously testing, making changes, and retesting. This process culminates in
delivering the final design to the client.

* The Double Diamond Model

An iterative design process can be represented visually with the “double diamond
diverge-converge model." The first step of each phase of the process is divergent,
which means designers focus on expanding the problem by generating a wide
range of questions and ideas. The second step of each phase is convergent, which
involves selecting one of those questions or ideas and refining it until everyone
converges on a single outcome.

* The Cycle of Iteration

The double diamond model is a helpful conceptual overview of the process of
design thinking, but it doesn’t give us much practical guidance for how to go about
that process. In practice, there are four main tasks of design thinking: observation,

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 idea generation, prototyping, and testing. This process is iterative, so it continuously
repeats itself until the final product is developed. Human needs are complicated, so
it’s hard to get any design right on the first try. Even defining the problem correctly
can be difficult, since people’s observed behavior is often very different from their
self report of the same behavior.
An iterative design process conflicts with traditional product development mindsets
that avoid failure at any cost. Instead, iterative design is designed to produce failure
as often as possible, since failure gives designers valuable feedback about what
needs fixing. A popular mantra at IDEO, one of the most influential design firms in
the world, is “fail frequently, fail fast."

* Observation
The first step in addressing any design problem is observation. The most useful
observation for design teams takes place in the real world, not in a controlled setting
like a lab. One way to do this is through applied ethnography, which involves
observing users in their usual environments, carrying out everyday activities, for as
long as possible. This gives the designer the most comprehensive picture of users’
needs and expectations. Applied ethnography is based on techniques of academic
anthropology but has been adapted to be much faster and have a more specific
aim.
It’s important that the people being observed are part of the intended audience for
the final product. The nature of the product determines the type of approach
designers take to choosing people to observe. Activity-based approaches are useful
for products that are used in more or less the same way, regardless of cultural
differences (like cars, computers, and phones). At first, this may seem like a
contrast to human-centered design, since the focus is no longer on individual users.
But activity-based design is ultimately a tool of human-centered design, since it
focuses on helping the user create a working conceptual model.

For example, driving a car is a complex activity that requires operating multiple
systems at the same time (like working the pedals while also steering, checking
the mirrors, and following traffic laws). This makes learning to drive difficult, but
the fact that each of those tasks serves the broader activity of “driving” makes
them easier to learn than they would be in isolation. The activity helps us make
sense of disconnected components.

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 It’s important to distinguish activities from tasks. In the example above, “driving” is
the activity, but “steering” and “checking mirrors” are tasks that serve that activity.
This distinction relates to the goal of each action: Activities relate to “be-goals," or
goals that relate to our choice and self-image, while tasks are “do-goals," or simple
steps that only matter because they are part of a higher level activity.
When the product is culturally specific or meant to indicate status within a particular
group, a culture-based approach to observation can be useful. This is especially
true for products like eating utensils and clothing. This type of observation is best
done in person, with native members of the particular culture in their local
environment. This is the only way to get a true sense of how and where the product
will be used.
Design Research Is Not the Same as Market Research
The process of observing people to figure out how they might use a certain product
might remind you of market research. The two processes are similar, but have
fundamentally different aims. Designers want to know what people need and how
they might use certain products, while marketers want to know which groups of
people are most likely to buy the product.
Another difference in the two disciplines is breadth versus depth. Market
researchers typically survey as many people as possible. They are interested in
averages, not specifics, and typically use quantitative data collection methods.In
contrast, designer researchers typically study far fewer people in much greater
depth, often observing one person for hours or even days. Their methods are
qualitative and are useful for uncovering specific needs and problems rather than
averages.
A successful product is both well-designed and well-marketed. Without a solid
marketing strategy, even the best product will fail, since users can’t appreciate the
design if they’re never enticed to buy the product in the first place. Without quality
design, even the best marketing strategy only goes so far, since users are unlikely
to become repeat customers if the product design is clunky and confusing.

* Idea generation
Observation provides the necessary background knowledge to both discover and
define the problem. The first step to exploring solutions is idea generation. There

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 are three rules for successfully generating ideas.

First, focus on quantity over quality. Generating as many ideas as possible

increases the odds that at least one of them will be useful.

Second, don’t censor yourself. Don’t kill ideas before they have a chance to
make the list. Even “silly” ideas can spark useful discussion.

Third, question everything, especially the obvious. Asking “obvious” questions

allows the opportunity to reexamine basic ideas, which often leads to the most
revolutionary new designs.

* Prototyping
The next step in the design process is to explore the most promising ideas in more
detail. This is done through rapid prototyping, which focuses on creating very rough
models of several ideas instead of a more accurate model of one specific idea.
Rapid prototyping can happen through sketches, cardboard models, arrangements
of sticky notes, spreadsheets, or even skits. More detailed prototypes can be tested
once the list has been narrowed down to one or two ideas.
The “Wizard of Oz technique” can be helpful for testing early prototypes. Just like
the wizard in the classic story uses smoke and mirrors to make himself appear
larger and more powerful, designers can create a facade that mimics the
experience of the final design (for example, by having a research assistant play the
part of a future computer program and supply answers in an “automated” chat with
users).

* Testing
Once the team has narrowed the list of possible solutions to one idea and
developed that idea into a more sophisticated prototype, it’s time for the testing
phase. This begins with bringing in members from the target user group (usually five
is enough) and having them use the product how they normally would.

If the product is meant to be used by just one person, it’s useful to put them in pairs,
with one using the prototype directly and the other offering suggestions,
commentary, and questions. This requires users to talk through their thought
processes out loud, which is helpful for designers observing the testing session.

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 Testing only five people might seem small, but keep in mind that testing is part of an
iterative process. After the first testing session, designers will use the feedback from
the first five users to tweak the design of the prototype. Then, a new set of five
potential users will be tested with this iteration. This method allows for continuous
feedback on increasingly successful iterations, rather than testing a large group just
once and hoping the changes made as a result will be successful.

* Is an Iterative Process Always the Best Option?

Unlike the cyclical process of iteration, the traditional design process is linear. It
often uses a “waterfall” method, where decisions are made sequentially without
pausing to test and reexamine. Linear design can also use “gated” methods, where
periodic management reviews that serve as a checkpoint before proceeding to the
next stage of the design process.
Linear methods are traditional for a reason. They make logical sense and are
usually far more cost-effective up front, since they typically proceed faster and
spend less time in the observation and testing stages. The downside is that the lack
of iterative testing means some design flaws may not be discovered until the
product is already on the market, which can be a costly mistake.
In general, linear methods are useful for large-scale, high-budget projects, where
the benefits of iteration would be outweighed by the high cost of failure. On the
other hand, iterative methods are best suited for smaller projects where prototyping
and testing can be done without enormous financial investment.
There are hybrid methods that balance these two approaches to maximize the
benefits of each of them. An adapted gated method has tightly scheduled
management reviews, but allows for free iteration between those reviews. This
keeps the process moving along while still allowing designers to hone in on the true
problem and best solution. It’s also possible to use iterative design for the problem
definition phase of a project, then switch to a linear method for the solution
development phase.

* Design Thinking in the Real World

Human-centered design has become a buzzword, and even well-intentioned
companies often fall short of the ideals. Pushing a product through a lengthy
iterative design process that involves weeks of field observations is a great idea in

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 theory, but in practice, budget and time constraints play a much bigger role. This is
why the author proposes his own eponymous “Law of Product Development”: that
all product development projects are “behind schedule and above budget” from the
moment they start.

* What Makes the Design Process Difficult?

Beyond time and budget, the makeup of the product development team can present
difficulties. The best teams are multidisciplinary, combining unique knowledge from
different specialties and from every phase of the product development process. The
downside of this arrangement is that every team member typically thinks their own
discipline is the most important. To manage this, it’s important for teams to reach a
mutual understanding of each other’s strengths and needs, and why those needs
are important for the overall success of the product.
Strong management is crucial to prevent individual departments from making
independent changes to the design, but getting everyone on the same page takes
time. To streamline the process, Norman recommends having the design research
and market research teams working in the field consistently, even before there is a
specific product to be tested. This gives the entire team a head start with a solid
foundation of user needs and motivations that can be honed through the rest of
product development.

* Designing for Special Populations

Another hurdle in the design process is conflicting product requirements. Designing
a single product that satisfies all members of the product development team and
meets the needs of a diverse group of users is a tall order.
One tool for designing to suit as many users as possible, despite the wide range of
human needs and traits, is physical anthropometry. This field studies measurements
of the human body, both at rest and while performing specific tasks (like range of
motion for reaching behind you). These standardized measurements allow
designers to work within percentiles, ensuring that the final product is likely to work
for as many users as possible. But no one design works for everyone, and even the
most inclusive designs can be unusable for tens of millions of users.

Not all products are meant to be used by every type of person. The author gives the
example of clothing—we don’t expect every piece of clothing to fit every person.

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 Instead we design and produce different sizes for different people. Designing for
users with disabilities is an important area requiring designers to focus on specific
needs rather than averages.
Traditionally, the design of assistive devices like mobility aids has focused
exclusively on function. This is why when we think of a walker or wheelchair, most
of us picture a clunky contraption that looks more at home in a hospital than
anywhere else. The institutional look of these designs contributes to the social
stigma already faced by people with disabilities. After all, there is little functional
difference between a wheelchair and a bicycle, but the two objects provoke very
different social reactions.
Universal Design

A universal design approach offers a different perspective on designing for disability.

Universal design creates products that are usable by the widest range of people,
not by designing for the “average” person, but by designing for the highest need. If a
product, environment, or service is designed with disability access in mind, it will
also be usable for those without disabilities.
A great example of this is OXO, a company that designs and manufactures kitchen
utensils. The founder of OXO started the company by designing a vegetable peeler
that wouldn’t put stress on his wife’s arthritic hands. The resulting product replaced
the thin metal handle of traditional peelers with a thick, ergonomic rubber grip. It
was then marketed not as a medical or adaptive product, but as simply a better
vegetable peeler, and launched the company into a household name. The lesson
here is that designing for disability typically ends up benefiting everyone (Shortform
note: this principle is known as the “curb cut effect”).
One of the keys to universal design is flexibility. Flexible designs that allow users to
customize the environment to their own needs can serve the greatest number of
people with a single product. We often see this kind of flexibility in products like
ergonomic office chairs, where users can adjust the height of the seat, headrests,
and armrests to fit their specific needs.

* When Is “Bad” Design a Good Idea?

Until now, this book has focused on identifying and working toward more user-
friendly designs. But there are also cases where deliberately designing something

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 to be difficult to use is the best design choice. For example, think back to Norman
doors. A door with hardware mounted in a hidden recess at the very top of the door
would normally be a nuisance. But if the door is part of a school and is only meant
to be operated by adults, not children, mounting the hardware where only adults can
see and reach is good design.
“Bad” or intentionally confusing design has many applications. For example:

Security systems and exterior doors that should only be operated by authorized
people.

Dangerous equipment, materials, or operations (such as safeties on guns,

computer dialogue boxes that require entering a password before permanently
deleting files, and child-proof caps on medicine and chemical bottles).

Games and puzzles where challenge is an essential part of the fun.

However, there is a difference between sloppy design and intentionally designing

confusing products. Intentionally confusing designs still need to be easy to use and
operate for some users, just not all users (for example, a child-proof cap on a
medication bottle is not an example of good design if an adult can’t open it either).
In other words, you need to know the rules in order to break them well. This can
take many forms, such as:

Making controls invisible, or positioning them so that only certain people will be
able to see and use them (for example, a doorknob placed much higher than
normal on a daycare center door to ensure only adults are able to operate it).

Using unnatural (but specific) mapping, so that only those with appropriate
training know which control operates which function.

Making controls impossible to operate with only one person (for example, by
spacing them across the room and requiring simultaneous action). This ensures
that no single person can activate dangerous operations.

Making feedback delayed and unintuitive, or removing it entirely.

Exercise: Observe the Right Users in the Right Settings

Exercise: Observe the Right Users in the Right

Settings

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 We know that observation is the first step of the
design thinking process, but choosing the right
users and settings can be difficult. Let’s practice this
now.
Imagine you were asked to design a new type of computer keyboard. What types of
people would you choose to observe? How would you choose?

What settings would you observe these people in?

If you had the chance to carry out these observations in the settings you chose,
what specific things would you observe? What might be important for helping you
identify problems with the current keyboard design? (For example, whether people
have added wrist rests or other supports to their keyboard setups.)

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Chapter 7: Design in the Real World: Competition, Innovation, and Ethics

Chapter 7: Design in the Real World: Competition,

Innovation, and Ethics
In an ideal world, every company would implement a human-centered design
approach using a research-intensive, iterative design process. In the real world, this
is far easier said than done. Producing well-designed products requires keeping the
company afloat, which often translates to making concessions in the design
process.

* The Pressures of Business

To keep profit margins high, manufacturers typically focus on price, features, and
quality (in that order), so a lengthy and expensive design process that drives up the
ultimate price of the product isn't practical. Even with the perfect combination of

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 those three factors, products (and companies) can still fail purely due to timing.
Successful products capitalize on the zeitgeist (German for “spirit of the time”),
hitting the market at just the right moment in the cultural and economic climate. On
top of all that, businesses also need to identify and market to the “real” customers—
not the end user, but the distributors who decide which products to sell in their
stores. Each of these pressures has an important impact on the design of the final
product.

* “Featuritis”
Competitive pressures can create unexpected consequences. For example,
“featuritis” is the “disease” affecting product development, characterized by what
Norman calls “creeping featurism," or the temptation to add more and more features
to an already well-designed product. There are several possible sources of creeping
featurism, including:

satisfying existing customers’ desires for new features;

keeping up with competitors who offer similar products;

enticing customers to upgrade.

The problem with creeping featurism is that it often degrades the overall quality of a
product. Instead, Norman recommends companies focus on their strengths, and
develop them even further. Rather than winning over customers with new features,
it’s better to do one thing better than anyone else on the market.

* Turning Ideas Into Successful Products

Technological change happens quickly, and new product designs are developed
quickly enough to keep up. But turning an idea into a successful product happens
much slower, if it happens at all. Early models of new technologies are often
prohibitively expensive, as was the case with digital cameras. Apple’s 1994
QuickTake digital camera was one of the first on the market, but it failed quickly, as
consumers found the new technology confusing, expensive, and unnecessary.
Another cause of delay is the risk-averse attitudes of large corporations. Radical
innovation has a high failure rate, and most big companies would rather stick to a
proven product. Smaller companies are more willing to take these risks, but often

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 don’t have the resources to withstand initial struggles. This is why most start-up
companies fail, regardless of the quality of their ideas.
Because most of the product development process happens out of the public eye,
many of us don’t realize just how long it can take to turn a product idea into reality.
Looking deeper into the development of video calling technology and the QWERTY
keyboard can help illustrate this point.

* Case Study: Videophone

The idea of communicating via two-way video was first proposed in 1879, just two
years after the invention of the telephone. The first working videophone was created
in the 1920s but did not become commercially available in the United States until
the 1960s, where it quickly failed. It wasn’t until the 2010s that technology finally
caught up to the 150 year-old vision, and video calling exploded in popularity.
In the 1879 cartoon that first publicly imagined videophones of the future, the
invention was credited to Thomas Edison. But Edison did not invent the
videophone. This is an example of Stigler’s Law, where famous names are attached
to products purely by reputation. We associate videophone technology with the
names of companies who finally successfully popularized it, not with any of the
actual inventors or original distributors. The lesson here is that being first is not
always an advantage if the timing is not right.

* Case Study: QWERTY Keyboards

Keyboards are another example of the long and winding road of product
development. The modern QWERTY keyboard was first developed in the 1870s for
mechanical typewriters. On these machines, each key was connected to the interior
typebar by a metal lever. Using keyboard designs with more logical layouts
(alphabetical, for example) often resulted in these levers crossing and jamming the
machine. The QWERTY arrangement was created for the specific purpose of
spacing out these levers to make them far less likely to jam.
We no longer need to worry about jamming metal levers, and many updated
keyboard designs exist that make typing easier and faster. So why do we still use a
keyboard layout designed to accommodate outdated technology? This is a classic
example of the legacy problem. The QWERTY layout was adopted by Remington,
the first company to successfully produce and market mechanical typewriters to a

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 wide audience. An entire generation learned to type on Remington typewriters, and
thus on the QWERTY layout—a powerful legacy.
By the time modern computer keyboards were invented, the existing keyboard
layout was so universally ingrained that introducing a new design was nearly
impossible. It doesn’t matter that alternate keyboards are faster and more efficient,
or that extensive use of the QWERTY layout can contribute to symptoms of carpal
tunnel syndrome; the cost of updating technology and retraining entire generations
is too high.

* Radical vs. Incremental Innovation

Technological innovation takes two forms: radical and incremental. Radical
innovation refers to the revolutionary, paradigm-shifting ideas that change the
fundamental nature of a product. Incremental innovation refers to the slower,
iterative process of refining those ideas to make them better and more user-friendly.
For example, the invention of the automobile was a radical innovation, but
incremental innovation is responsible for the steady stream of small changes that
turned the first automobile into the modern car.
Incremental innovation happens through repeated iterative design cycles of
observation, idea generation, prototyping, and testing. This happens not just within
a single design project, but across the industry and over years or even decades.
This process is sometimes called “hill climbing," based on the metaphor of climbing
a hill blindfolded. Each step is a test: if you move your foot in one direction and find
higher ground, step forward—if not, pivot and try again.
Radical innovation happens through the invention of new technologies as well as
the combination of existing technologies. For example, music, television, and book
publishing were once entirely separate industries. Now, internet streaming services
have collapsed these industries into one platform, completely changing the way
media is made, distributed, and consumed.
Radical innovation can be especially important for vital services (like housing,
transportation, education, and medicine) where incremental change hasn’t
addressed underlying fundamental issues. The complicated infrastructure of these
fields makes change especially difficult, but the potential benefits of radical
innovation are also much greater.

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 * The Future of Technology
All this innovation raises questions about the future. With technology evolving at
such a rapid pace, how will our relationship to it change? On one hand, humans and
technology are more linked than ever. Artificial intelligence and advanced medical
technology like pacemakers and bionic prosthetics are blurring the line between
human and machine in a brand new way. Our cultures have also changed to reflect
this new relationship.
However, while people continue to evolve, our needs remain largely the same. We
still need food, water, sleep, shelter, and social interaction, among other things. The
changes in our technology affect how we meet those needs, but not the needs
themselves. Phones have become smaller and now contain cameras, but the need
to talk to one another from a distance and to record history in a visual way has not
changed. Keyboards have evolved and may eventually be replaced entirely, but
there will always be a need to record information in written form. In other words,
human needs won’t change, but the way they’re satisfied will.

* Do We Rely Too Much on Technology?

With technology becoming so integrated into our daily lives, are we becoming too
dependent on it? Do our devices make us more capable, or less? These questions
are not new—even Socrates argued that the invention of books would decimate the
human capacity for memory, discussion, and independent thought. But books have
arguably made us more intelligent, not less. Not having to memorize every story or
essay we encounter has made it possible for us to engage with more sources than
ever before.
In the same way, technological innovation has made it possible to automate tasks
that once took up huge amounts of time and energy—resources that can now be
applied to more than just the necessary activities for survival. Our intelligence hasn’t
changed, only the tasks we apply it to.
The key is in using technology to do the jobs technology can and should do. This
frees up time and effort for humans to do even bigger and better things than before.
Relying on human skills for part of a task and technology for another part is called
distributed cognition, and the combination typically outperforms what either people
or machines could do alone.

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 Pitting human chess masters against computer opponents is a classic example of
this effect. In a one to one competition, modern computer programs almost always
win. But when a human player and the computer work as a team, they beat both
human and computer opponents. This doesn’t require the human team member to
be a grandmaster (or the computer to be running the world’s most advanced chess
software) so long as they work effectively as a team.

* The Ethics of Good Design

Design impacts people on a cultural and societal level, not just individuals. It can be
a powerful force for social change, which means it must be used responsibly. What
does that mean for designers?
The Future of Content Creation
The almost universal availability of new technologies is changing the way we create
and engage with information. Tools like blogging sites, integrated cameras, and free
editing software make it possible for anyone to publish new media on any subject
and reach a wider audience than ever before. Norman calls this “the rise of the
small."
Easy access to technology is a game changer for parts of the world with less
developed infrastructure. Access to information and low-cost technology has made
it possible for people to innovate in brand new ways and develop solutions for their
needs based on the resources they have available (like bicycle-powered water
pumps and solar chimneys). These designs can then be shared online and adopted
wherever they might be useful, even across the world.
While technological advances make amateur content creation easier and more
accessible, the opposite is true for professional content creators. The programs and
devices required to make professional-quality media are more sophisticated (and
more expensive) than ever before. This leveling of the playing field is a double-
edged sword: while accessing information is easier than ever, not all that
information is true, and creating media that has been fact-checked by experts
requires expensive professional resources.

* Consumerism and Sustainability

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 Like content creation, the design of durable goods is also changing as technology
evolves. The ability to compare items from different companies online before
deciding which to purchase has made competition between manufacturers fiercer
than ever. In this environment, more emphasis is placed on aesthetics and features
that are likely to entice buyers and give companies an edge. A product can be
perfectly designed for its function, but will still lose out to more attractive versions,
even if they’re far less functional.
The need to attract buyers creates another hurdle. While services like healthcare
and food distribution are self-sustaining (because there will always be a need for
them), durable physical goods are not: If everyone who needs a particular product
purchases one, there’s no one left to sell it to. One way manufacturers get around
this is through planned obsolescence, the practice of designing products that will
break down after a certain amount of time and need to be replaced.
Trends are another tool companies use to entice repeat buyers—if there is a newer,
more fashionable version of a product, buyers are more likely to upgrade. This
creates a cycle of consumption: buy something, use it until it breaks or goes out of
style, throw it away, and buy another. While this cycle is good for business, the
waste it generates is horrible for the environment.
Thankfully, the combination of new technologies and a growing cultural awareness
of sustainability issues is creating a new paradigm. It is easier than ever to design
sustainable versions of products (like streaming services rather than physical copies
of movies), and environmental friendliness is now a selling point.

Exercise: Does Technology Make Us Smart?

Exercise: Does Technology Make Us Smart?

The debate over whether technology makes us more

or less intelligent rages on. This exercise will help
you examine how technology affects your own life.
The author argues that technology makes us smart because it takes over menial
jobs, giving us time and energy to devote to more involved tasks. Can you think of
an example in your own life where technology has saved you time and allowed you
to focus on other work?

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 Are there any parts of your daily routine that you could automate with technology
but haven’t? What might be the pros and cons of automating that task?

Many people believe that technology makes us less intelligent, since it provides
constant distraction and prevents us from learning to do things for ourselves. Has
technology had this kind of effect in your own life, either in general or with particular
devices and experiences?

Is there a middle ground here? Is technology helpful for you in some areas and
harmful in others? Why do you think that is?

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Exercise: Consider Consumer Values

Exercise: Consider Consumer Values

Think about the power you have as a consumer to

influence design.
A product design is only successful if it attracts buyers. When you shop for durable
goods like clothing or computers, what matters most to you? (For example:
features, price, packaging, and so on.)

Do company values influence how likely you are to buy their products? What values
do you look for in an ideal company to support? (For example: fair wages,
sustainability, transparency, and so on.)

How important are those values to you when deciding whether to purchase
something? Do they outweigh any of the other considerations you listed above (like

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 price or features)?

Companies respond to consumer demands. Assuming it were financially possible,

would you consider only supporting companies that align with your values? Why or
why not?

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Exercise: Reflect on The Design of Everyday Things

Exercise: Reflect on The Design of Everyday Things

Now that you’ve finished the summary, let’s figure

out how to apply the lessons of the book to your
own life.
This book covers a wide range of topics in both design and cognitive psychology.
What information surprised you most? What are you still curious about?

In previous exercises, you practiced looking at everyday objects with a designer’s

eye by identifying affordances, signifiers, constraints, mapping strategies, and
mental models. Is there anywhere in your daily life where this new way of looking at
objects could be helpful?

Did the lessons in this book change the way you think about errors? Is it helpful to
think about tracing “human” errors in your own life back to design?

Going forward, what are your most important takeaways from this summary? How
will you apply them to your own life?

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