Reading Response #7

I'm assuming that this week's readings are based on Chapter 3 from Norman's book The Design of Future Things. I write assuming, because I'm writing these posts far in advance of when they are actually due because I know that I will have a busy semester ahead of me and I'm writing this blog post on January 25th. At any rate, there were a few notable quotations from Chapter 3 that stood out in my mind.

"Designers may think their designs communicate, but, in fact, they only signal, for communication only goes in one direction." (p.57) I think I selected this quotation because I realize that many of our modern conveniences "signal" to us, but we may have a hard time distinguishing between these sounds because they are unnatural, unintelligible sounds. For example, in my house we have a rice cooker that apparently is "smart" rice cooker, it's very easy to use, and the label on the rice cooker tells me that it is "neuro fuzzy", whatever that means. When it's finished cooking the rice, it beeps. The beep that comes from our rice cooker sounds very much like the beep that come from many of our other modern conveniences. Often times my son will hear one of the beeps and ask me what is beeping, I'm not always sure what is beeping or even where the sound is coming from. Norman seems to be more in favour of using "natural signals"  as he puts it, such as the sound of boiling water and the airspace in the spout of the kettle that allows it to whistle.

Another topic that stood out for me from this chapter was when Norman was discussing "risk compensation". When an activity is changed so that it is perceived to be safer, people take more risks, thereby keeping the accident rate constant (p.78) despite the addition of seatbelts, helmets, protective padding to football uniforms, anti-skid brakes and stability controls to cars, we still see accidents. Perhaps when it comes to cars, there are other factors involved such as distractions, applying make-up, shaving, other personal grooming habits, reaching for CDs, answering the phone, listening to music or even texting. Here's a great little film sponsored by AT&T to try and discourage people from driving and texting at the same time:


I couldn't help but think of the equipment changes in hockey over the years and how we still have high injury rates at all levels of hockey. Obviously, there are a lot of factors involved and it depends on what we're talking about injury-wise with hockey. It used to be that hockey nets were anchored down more, and that if you ran into the net it didn't move, and you'd feel it. This led to a lot of injuries of players, so nets now are still anchored but if enough push force is exerted on the net it pops up and out of its holes. This saved players from potential injuries but also let to players "crashing the net" more and "running the goalie" because the fear of getting hurt by running into the net was removed. Rules had to be changed to protect the goalies more, but you still see players falling all over the goalies and bumping the net of its moorings. I wouldn't want to agree with Don Cherry too much here, because he is opinionated about this topic, and has this attitude that only European sissies wear visors to protect their eyes (I'm sorry, but I'd be wearing a visor too Don, accidents happen and it is an added layer of protection to a particularly vulnerable part of the body), but he may not be completely off-base when it comes to protective equipment in hockey. The size of protective equipment has been steadily increasing, and you see players maybe not letting up before a hit because they have a feeling of invincibility under all that padding and equipment. I really don't have statistics to back any of this up, it was just opinion, and I'm not advocating that we go back to the way the game was played in the 1970s. I don't long for the days of watching Guy Lafleur skating down the wing with the air blowing through his hair (although Don Cherry might, but he say he missed the way Bobby Orr skated around people), I just think that despite the improvements in the safety equipment that is used in hockey we still see a lot of injuries.