Don bring out a very interesting idea which said that the ability to personalise something make something yours. If you can’t personalise something, which is to use the thing your way, then you are just using something common and ordinary, not special. For example, Don shows a juicer, but asks not to use it as a juicer as it will damage the gold plate of the juicer. So one of Don’s friends use the juicer as a hat hanger and personalise the juicer. In today society, where most people want to personalise things and they did so by getting expensive and exotic goods, but Don is suggesting an easier way to achieve this- use the things your way and you will personalise it.
As the car user nowadays want more and more features in the car, the switches and function controller in the car is getting very complicated- so carmaker like BMW and Mercedes tried to simplify it. They did so by making the exterior looks neat and clean, but the controlling of the actual function is not as how the exterior look. Instead the controlling of the actual function is getting more complex. For example, BMW claim to come up with an “easy” way to simplify the function of the car, which is a screen and a knob that can control 700 functions! We don’t even know that our car have 700 functions! Another example is the Mercedes, it also claim to have a more simplify design, whereas just like BMW, the exterior look perfectly clean and organise, but it is a disaster when come to the actual functions. In order to adjust the volume of the radio, one has to go the screen and select Menu - Entertainment System - Radio - Volume, that is a total of 4 steps before one can adjust the volume!! So Don is pointing out that designers are doing a bad job in simplifying the car, a good design not only need to look perfect, clean and neat from the exterior, but it must also be user friendly, easy to operate and safe to use.
Image source: http://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/de2008/images/day_images/don_norman.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment