Don Norman’s DOET

1. Don Norman’sDOET Jim Rowan Georgia Gwinnett College ITEC 4130

2. Don Norman’s fundamental principles of designing for humans • Provide a good conceptual model • Make things visible • Provide good mapping • Provide feedback

3. Don Norman’s fundamental principles of designing for humans • Provide a good conceptual model • Make things visible • Provide good mapping • Provide feedback

4. What’s a conceptual model? • Designer’s conceptual model is built into the device • System image is what the device shows the user • User’s conceptual model is how the user interprets the system image • Q: Does it match the system’s actual functioning?

5. Different conceptual models

6. The system image

7. The user’s model

8. The actual underlying model

9. Don Norman’s fundamental principles of designing for humans • Provide a good conceptual model • Make things visible • Provide good mapping • Provide feedback

10. Make things visible • Just because it is available to be seen doesn’t mean you are going to see it • Apollo 13 for example

11. Don Norman’s fundamental principles of designing for humans • Provide a good conceptual model • Make things visible • Provide good mapping • Provide feedback

12. Good mapping • Natural mapping • Physical analogy • Louder or softer • Rising level or lowering level • Movement direction as pointer • left points left • right points right • up points up • down points down

13. Good mapping • Natural mapping • Cultural standards • Red is stop • Green is go • Yellow is caution

14. Parroting the shape:One way to support mapping

15. What does it mean? You have to memorize a mapping for this: left is back? If the wheel was vertically placed it might be easier to invent the mapping: Up is forward

16. Start Here

17. Don Norman’s fundamental principles of designing for humans • Provide a good conceptual model • Make things visible • Provide good mapping • Provide feedback

18. Feedback • When you pick up your phone to make a call you wait until you get a “dial tone” • This dial tone is intentionally provided feedback • The Bell system wanted the user to know when he is connected and allowed to dial

19. Feedback • Feedback of what? • Feedback of possible actions to be taken? • Norman’s Execution • Feedback to show the result? • Norman’s Evaluation

20. Feedback • Compare the magic marker and board to chalk and chalk board… • Marker proclaims it’s existence • Chalk also proclaims it’s existence • Which tells you that it is going to be usable? • That’s feedback

21. Humans are explanation seeking • We want to explain why things happen • This is why correlation is frequently mistaken for cause and effect • When you are explaining things you are forming a (possibly faulty) cognitive model of the way things work

22. Humans look for “reasonable” explanations • L1011 is a 3 engine aircraft • One engine shows low oil pressure and gets cut off • Eight minutes later the remaining two engines show low oil pressure and get cut off • Crew didn’t want to believe it • “Million to one” so it’s not reasonable • Why?

23. Explaining the L1011 • Crew can’t understand how 3 engines can fail simultaneously • But… they were thinking of the engines as independent units but… • There was an unseen connection between the 3 engines • They were all 3 overhauled at the same time!

24. Faulty explanations:Naïve physics; Running man

25. Q: Why is Summer hotter?

26. Nature of human action • 1)We look at the world • 2)We compare it to what we want • 3)We form goals to make it happen • 4)We take actions to achieve those goals • 5)Go back to 1

27. Nature of human action:Execution • As you move down on the graph, you get more specific • Form the goal: • Build a house • Form the intention: • To build a house I need to: • Apply for loan • Look for a lot • Look for a house plan • Look for a contractor • Form the action sequences required • Look online for loan providers • Contact a real estate agent • … • Actually carry out the actions • Fill out loan applications • Attend appointments to view lots • …

28. Nature of human action:Execution • As you move down on the graph, you get more specific • Form the goal: • Get an undergraduate degree • Form the intention: • ? • Form the action sequences required • ? • Actually carry out the actions • ?

29. Nature of human action:Evaluation • As you move up on the graph, you get less specific • Perceive the current state of the world • Do I own a lot? • Interpret the perception by comparing results to expectations • No I’m still looking • Evaluate the interpretation • I don’t have a lot so I’ll have to continue looking for one • Since I don’t have a lot, clearly I haven’t reached my goal of buying a house.

30. Putting it all together:Norman’s 7 stages of action • Form the goal • Form the intention • Specify the sequence of actions • Execute the actions • Perceive the state of the world • Interpret the state of the world • Evaluate the interpretations • Have I met my goal?

31. Restart here on wednesday

32. Knowledge in the head;Knowledge in the world • There’s more knowledge in the world than you might imagine • Humans are lazy… on purpose • There’s too much going on in the world to pay attention to everything so we are selective • We learn just enough to do what we need to do • Herbert Simon called this “satisficing” • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing • What good is the right answer if it comes too late to help you solve the problem?

33. Herbert Simon • He pointed out that human beings lack the cognitive resources to optimize: • we usually do not know the relevant probabilities of outcomes • we can rarely evaluate all outcomes with sufficient precision • our memories are weak and unreliable • A more realistic approach to rationality takes into account these limitations • This is called bounded rationality.

34. Strategies that take advantage of satisficing Don’t sacrifice the “good enough” answer In a search for the perfect answer POGE: Principle of good enough http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_good_enough Worse is better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_Better The reverse of this is Featuritis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Featuritis

35. Knowledge in the head;Knowledge in the world There’s more out there than you might imagine

36. Knowledge in the head;Knowledge in the world There’s more out there than you might imagine That’s why context is so important Many times context provides the actual meaning This is one reason that moving an aging person to an elder care facility can be so traumatic for the aging person… their living arrangements provide the context to their lives… it provides them with clues to who they are and how they live

37. Knowledge in the head;Knowledge in the world

38. Heuristics for the 7 steps

39. What’s wrong here? How does this fix it?

40. Making controls look different:That’s the problem in the Pixar short we saw earlier

41. Types of task structure • What is the structure of the task you are asking the user to carry out? • Deep • Many simple decisions • Shallow • A single more complicated decision

42. A deep task structure

43. A shallow task structure

44. Interlocks and forcing functions Physically block one action by placing the first task in the way of the second

45. Lockout form of forcing function

46. Overcoming task complexity through organization

47. Mappings

48. Is making something easy to do always the goal? • What about game design? • What about in specialized environments?

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