Don Norman

I think anyone developing things should read it.

It's called, it's by Don Norman.

It's a pretty cool reading.

Okay, cool.

So in the same sense that Dreyfus could talk about the physical characteristics, we can talk about the mental capacities.

How much can you remember? How long can you remember it? How well can you perceive differences? Don Norman, who's here, did a lot of the early work in sort of looking at a whole bunch of different dimensions of these kinds of questions.

So from this point of view, a person is a cognitive processor.

They have a long-term memory, a short-term memory.

Yeah.

Are you a fan of the Don Norman's design of everyday things?

I am.

Do

probably couldn't take any more energy than that if the rest of the body were to function.

So if that's true, and this is a scheme from Dan Goldman, who wrote the book on emotional intelligence, and Don Norman, who's a psychologist and a cognitive scientist.

They've got this model for the brain that says, well, you've got all this stuff that comes in, the stimulus.

You've got all this stuff that goes out, unconscious responses, like I just drove to work and I don't even know how I did it, or I'm breathing and I'm walking and I'm not processing most of that information.

Hey, welcome back to 7 Minute Books.

I'm Sam, and today we're talking about the design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman.

Sophie, I have to ask, have you ever pushed a door that clearly said pull and felt like a complete idiot?

Oh, constantly.

And we've seen it during the COVID pandemic and many other situation where people need visualization to make informed decisions, personally or collectively.

Speaking of sociotechnical problems, as, uh, Don Norman and, uh, Saper, um, write in this article, "Sociotechnical problems are complex, multifaceted problems that are difficult to solve due to their interconnectedness and shifting natures, making them very difficult to sort out cause and effect and solve." Uh, examples are systems such as healthcare or transportation or governmental policy and environmental protection and sustainability.

They're also known as wicked problem.

Anybody has heard of wicked problem before? Lovely.

I'm joined today by someone who needs no introduction for anyone that who has been ever thinking seriously about design, I would say,

Don Norman.

Don is just an absolute legend in design and he has spent much of his lifelong career now shaping the way we think about design from our relationship with everyday and future objects, I would say, future things, and exploring conceptual models through which we increasingly understand complex systems as well.

Hello Don.

I'm glad you brought it back there, 'cause you're right.

It was like, that was the era where, um, like when I think about, like, when Don Norman, uh-

Yeah

... you know, started-

We're talking about a classroom of students who've never been in workforce, don't know even how to enter it, and they're afraid of failing or failing with their work and the work that they do.

So this slower process of being coached and assisted through those feelings that go along with failure, or like Don Norman likes to say, I'll quote the godfather of UX, that it's not failure, it's a learning experience.

I always try to tell them that because sometimes they get emotional.

There is some element of emotional involvement in all of this.