Recent readings

In the reading I have done in the week, I thought Norman touched on some interesting points.
On page 31, he states "The same technology that simplifies life by providing more functions to each device also complicates life by making the device harder to learn, harder to use." I completely agree with this statement. Sometimes simplicity is best. Often, when people are offered too many options with a single object, things become more complicated to learn and understand. Many times, buttons, switches, knobs, etc. are not labeled or labeled poorly. People are generally lazy; we don't want to spend the time to thoroughly go through instructions. And the more options we have, the more we need to learn.

Nelson also discusses "learned helplessness", which is something I am personally guilty of. There have been countless of times I have not been able to use something, and I automatically blame myself and stop trying. Or I think I'm too 'dumb' to understand the object I am trying to operate. It never really occurred to me that maybe it's NOT me. Maybe it's the object, and it's poor design. Many people unfortunately experience this, and continue to blame themselves. The designers then believe that their creations have no flaws, when they indeed do and they continue to design poorly designed objects.