October 3

After reading Chapter 3 in Norman’s Emotional Design a few items struck me as being important when designing products. Thinking about designing a product that appeals to a consumer at a visceral, behavioral, and reflective level would be quite difficult. Norman points out that “no single design will satisfy everyone” due to variations in culture, personal tastes, and other factors. I found the reference to the Microsoft XBOX ad to be interesting: “Go outside. Get some air. Watch a sunset. Boy, does that get old fast.” Personally, I don’t remember these ads, maybe I’m outside the target demographic, and I’m not watching the right TV shows to see these ads, or I’m not reading the right magazines either. Which helps illustrate the point of market segmentation. Producers of mass consumed products know that they aren’t going to reach everyone, so they target their little market niche. Also, the XBOX ad pits the reflective level against the visceral and behavioral thrills that you can get from playing an XBOX game. Norman also points out that “with the large range of individual, cultural, and physical differences among the people of the world, it is impossible for a single product to satisfy everyone.” True. But what about products that seem to dominate the marketplace (no I’m not going to ge into the Mac vs PC thing again), but how do you explain the popularity of a product like the iPod in its various incarnations? Is it simply a matter of better marketing? Doesn’t the iPod’s popularity span various age demographic groups? Does emotional design have a role to play in the popularity of a product like the iPod?

Sometimes it seems to me that Apple is cannibalizing its own products too. Take for example the new iPod nano and iPod shuffle. It just looks like they decided to take an iPod and cut it in half. And as for the iPad, it's just a bigger version of the iTouch. Weird. 

I also have some reactions to Kim Vicente's The Human Factor, Chapters 3 and 4. In these chapters Vicente is looking the human-tech ladder and specifically physical and psychological factors to consider when designing products. As I was reading Chapter 3's discussion of designing products for human bodies with a variety of physical characteristics, and specifically looking at ergonomically designed products for the hand, for some reason I made connections to the Sony Playstation controllers. Since its introduction with the PS One, Sony's controllers have remained remarkably similar.

There have been technical improvements along the way with this particular controller, with the PS3 controller having wireless BlueTooth capabilities and Sixaxis motion detection, ergonomically, not much has changed. The controller itself is fairly easy to hold, fitting comfortably in your hands, but you probably have to be about 5 or 6 years old in order to be able to hold it correctly (I know this because this the approximate age that my son started to play some video games on the PS2 and PS3). It actually feels good in your hands, and you can play for hours on end. This is an ergonomic design that is set up for comfort, because if it wasn't comfortable to hold in your hands, no one would want to play video games for very long. I'm sure that there was a lot of task analysis at work and observation as well, or they could have just looked at what the competitors were doing and modified their designs for the PS1 controller. There is alot of similarities between the arrangement of the buttons on a Super NES controller and the PS1 controller. It's like as if they copied their design and added a couple of handles and some analog sticks.

I also found the discussion of the Fender Stratocaster really interesting as well. Especially how Leo Fender allowed guitar players to play his prototypes and give him feedback which went into subsequent designs. If you are ever in Seattle, a visit to the Experience Music Project museum is a must-see because they have not only a history of rock 'n' roll music there, they have a lot of guitars on display, and you can see the evolution of effective designs.

Chapter 4 in Vicente's book focused on psychological human factor in the human-tech ladder. Products may work physically but if they are too much of a burden on our limited memory capacity, too complex, or counter-intuitive they will not be well-received. I was reminded of our automated telephone system for the CBE when you need to call in for a substitute. Itès called SEMS (Substitute Employee Management System). It is an automated phone message system, that at times seems hard to navigate. You can't anticipate the numbers that you will be asked to press next, because they do not seem logical. I loved the bit about the Magic Roundabout in Swindon. Personally, I really like Roundabouts, and wish we had more of them in Calgary. Although the Magic Roundabout might look confusing, I am sure that it helps traffic flow nicely. Reading this bit reminded me of the recent fiasco on one of my favorite reality TV shows, the Amazing Race. Race participants had to get themselves from Heathrow Airport in London to Stonehenge. It is not that difficult, trust me, but it was for people that could not read maps or make sense of the roundabouts to get on the proper highway to get to the Salisbury Plain.  It is actually quite funny how so many of them had a hard time with the roundabouts and ended getting all turned around.