This is something that I generally think about with any object in my life, and in fact most of my adult working life has been focused around this concept: how good looking is this object? Of course this article is not about aesthetics alone, it’s about the merging of aesthetics with usable or “natural” user design. That this article was written before the rise of the apple empire is fairly evident, simply because nowadays any conversation taking place about the importance of an elegant and simple interface practically requires a mention of the mac or iphone. It did seem to me that the trade off between user control and the complexity of a design wasn’t something that Norman spent any time talking about. While I completely agree with him that there are many, many objects in creation that exhibit awkward or non-intuitive design, I would also argue that there are times when a watch or alarm clock’s simplification may just mean that the user no longer has access to a control they may desire. But here is where people should also take some responsibility for understanding the kinds of objects that they invite into their lives. The most complex form of an object may not be the one that will be most beneficial to you as an individual.
With that out of my system, I really enjoyed thinking spending some time thinking about his statement, “affordances provide strong cues to the operations of things.” The concept that wood is for writing on, and not for smashing like glass, is completely accurate, and something I hadn’t actively thought about before.
I took a look at our very own local elevator for thinking about user/object interaction. I would argue that the main/lobby elevator button is in general one of the more problematic user interfaces that many of us deal with daily. Here at NYU, the initial up or down button, when pressed, is extremely difficult to see, so people have to both be quite close to it to be sure it’s lit up, and frequently feel the need to push the button multiple times to make sure “it worked.” A larger, more visible light up arrow would make it clear that it had been pushed without closer examination, and if it were to blink, or do something other than remain on, the person waiting may feel like the elevator was “doing something.”
Another opportunity for improvement comes inside the elevator, where people will often stare up into the air, craning your neck to watch the floor number light up. Even so, people will often step off at the wrong floor if the elevator stops before their expected destination (often the lobby.) I considered that if each floor had a different note/tone that it made on each floor people might be more aware of which floor hey were on without having to dedicate all of their attention to a series of lights.
In thinking about the “naturalness” of various user associations Norman mentioned, I thought that perhaps the lower floor could have lower notes, and the higher notes would “naturally” indicate a higher floor. And since many of us travel most between one floor and the lobby floor, there could be something distinctive, perhaps a two -tone dum-dum that seems to communicate a final rest, when you’ve reached the ground floor. If the people waiting in the lobby were similarly able to hear these sounds, they would also have a general idea of where the elevator was without craning their necks up to watch the progress (or non-progress) of the elevator.
I took a look at our very own local elevator for thinking about user/object interaction. I would argue that the main/lobby elevator button is in general one of the more problematic user interfaces that many of us deal with daily. Here at NYU, the initial up or down button, when pressed, is extremely difficult to see, so people have to both be quite close to it to be sure it’s lit up, and frequently feel the need to push the button multiple times to make sure “it worked.” A larger, more visible light up arrow would make it clear that it had been pushed without closer examination, and if it were to blink, or do something other than remain on, the person waiting may feel like the elevator was “doing something.”
Another opportunity for improvement comes inside the elevator, where people will often stare up into the air, craning your neck to watch the floor number light up. Even so, people will often step off at the wrong floor if the elevator stops before their expected destination (often the lobby.) I considered that if each floor had a different note/tone that it made on each floor people might be more aware of which floor hey were on without having to dedicate all of their attention to a series of lights.
In thinking about the “naturalness” of various user associations Norman mentioned, I thought that perhaps the lower floor could have lower notes, and the higher notes would “naturally” indicate a higher floor. And since many of us travel most between one floor and the lobby floor, there could be something distinctive, perhaps a two -tone dum-dum that seems to communicate a final rest, when you’ve reached the ground floor. If the people waiting in the lobby were similarly able to hear these sounds, they would also have a general idea of where the elevator was without craning their necks up to watch the progress (or non-progress) of the elevator.