Reading Response # 1

I wrote what I thought was going to be my first reading response for the Winter 2011 semester, and then I looked at the course outline and found out that, in fact, I was supposed to start at the back of Donald Norman's book The Design of Future Things. In the "Summary of the Design Rules" Norman states the following design rules:

Design Rules for Human Designers of "Smart" Machines 
1. Provide rich, complex, and natural signals.
2. Be predictable.
3. Provide good conceptual models.
4. Make output understandable.
5. Provide continual awareness without annoyance.
6. Exploit natural mappings.

Design Rules Developed by Machines to Improve Their Interactions with People
1. Keep things simple.
2. Give people a conceptual model.
3. Give reasons.
4. Make people think they are in control.
5. Continually reassure.
6. Never label human behavior as "error". (Rule added by the human interviewer.)

From a design standpoint, as designers of a product that we wish people (and textbook companies) to use someday, we have to cognizant of the design rules that Norman has laid out for us here. We need to provide rich, complex and natural signals (which Norman details in Chapter 3 when he discusses the sound of a kettle whistling) in our product. We also have to not assume to much of our target audience that they will intuitively "get it" and there doesn't need to be as much explanation as to how our product will work.