norman@sdics.UUCP (04/17/87)
Thanks to the many of you who have sent private messages in request to my query for good and bad design examples. I intend to summarize them at some future time for distribution. Meanwhile, I am answering individual responses individually. Let me here give a general comment about what I am trying to do, and respond to the short debate that just ensued about the merits of B & O design for audio equipment. Matt Perez suggests that B & O is just the example of good design I was looking for. Mark Stevans suggests that is is just the example of poor design that I have been complaining about: wins prizes, but is costly, unreliable, and not that easy to use. I must confess to some sympathy for both positions. When I recently went out to purchase an audio system, intending to follow my own guidelines about usability and understandability, I found only one manufacturer who came even close: B & O. I ended up with a B & O system, the new one. More money than I intended to spend, but it was the only one whose front panels did not look like nuclear power control rooms (which I have studied, and which in my opinion are the causal factor in much so-called human error in the nuclear industry, but that is another story). B & O was the only system that had a sensible remote control (actually, essentially all it has is a remote -- it can't be operated from the equipment itself), the only one my family could all use immediately, with only minimal training. Other companies did have integrated remotes, but they tended to be rectangular matrices of buttons, in poorly laid out rows and columns, impossible to use in poor lighting, not easy to understand. B & O's remote is very well laid out, in functional groups, with secondary controls hidden behind a panel, and with a display giving feedback about what has been set. It has 2-way infra-red control, so that the set responds to the control, letting it display FM staion, loudness, tone, or balance setting, CD track and time, etc. The feedback makes a huge difference. The only company that used feedback. We find the sound quality excellent and ease of use good. (So far it hasn't broken down.) Design is not perfect. It has the same flaws as the Macintosh. It looks good on the cover, but for some functions you have to double click while holding down control-shift-command escape 3. Violates their own design rules, that one does. Both for the Macintosh and for B & O. So there are some things we still can't remember how to do, some things that are badly done. B & O isn't perfect, but if you want an integrated system, so that you can easily switch among components, or record easily from one to another, I have seen no better (and I spent 2 months looking: I think I saw everything). The Japanese are especially INSENSITIVE to ergonomic design, to ease of use. The Japanese like gadgetry and extra functionality, even if the functions cannot be used. I have lectured in Japan and visited several companies: they do not understand the role of psychology in Japan -- Psychology to them is a form of humanities. Engineers do all the design. (Not that it is fair to establish national stereotypes like that: There are many good individual designers in japan.) ---------- To the rest of you. Umm, I do know the standard literature. Caplan, Blake, Pewtroski, Rybczynski, Sommer, Papanek, Alexander. I have been to libraries and Design Centers across US and Europe. The literature, I tell you, is barren. Very little. There are a few really good design firms (e.g., Richardson/Smith, ID Two), and a few companies that try hard and have good design staffs (e.g., Apple, Bell Labs, ATT, Belcorp, Kodak, DEC), but there is remarkably little out there. Which is why I am writing the book. Which is why I am looking for help. For those who asked: the book POET is scheduled to be published around March, 1988. One more revision (the last) to be finished around June, then 9 months gestation at the publishers. The formal citation is: Norman, D. A. (1988). The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books. Donald A. Norman Institute for Cognitive Science C-015 University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 norman@nprdc.arpa norman@ics.ucsd.EDU