Reading Reflection Part One: "The Inmates are Running the Asylum"

A Reflection on Part One of "The Inmates are Running the Asylum"

Part One of "Inmates..." presents an interesting introduction to the fundamental problems of product interaction and many comparisons could be drawn with Donald Norman's, "The Design of Everyday Things".  He presents some interesting discussion topics, which will be discussed below.

From Chapter One: 

Human Error vs A Bad Product:
Central to many debates, the author suggests that the problem of many product is bad feedback to the user.

Error Types:
From reading Chapter One, the core of his examples and the design failures are linked to Norman's, "The Design of Everyday Things".

1. the camera example showed how products can have confusing interfaces and responses, with little understanding of what the user wants.
2. The Porsche Car example shows a computerised system that was not designed for all potential contexts. This was a major design flaw, the product would be unable to operate when turning sharp corners with low fuel.
3. The ATM example presents a key problem in most computerised, "step-based" systems. The ATM lacked an understanding of the capabilities of user (i.e. the system gave options for several account types, yet the user only had one) as well as not allowing the user to retreat back one step. If one failure occurred the whole process had to be restarted. However, argument could be made for this design decision. When dealing with people's precious money, perhaps the design erred on the safe side to avoid risk of mishandling a transaction

Finally, Cooper presents a point of view I most definitely agree with. The problem is not the technology; it is the culture, training and attitudes of the designers and educators that present real problems.

From Chapter Two:

Chapter Two expands the problems of Interaction designs, particularly, the concept of Cognitive Friction. Essentially, Humans have problems when presented with a complex, dynamic system. However, Cooper makes the brilliant point when explaining one problem with technology. The problem lies in the cross over from digital to physical and the humans who design.

He believes that there is often friction between programmers and designers; that programmers never consider the human at the end and decisions made by administrators.

I believe, the problems lie in the intangibility of software. Humans cannot visualise what is happening and therefore find it difficult to conceptualise a process. Therefore, software designers blame humans for their inability to understand, while it is the programmers who should be making it easier to comprehend. 

This is best typified when Cooper critiques "interface design". Interface design is just the surface...

Layers:

Interface

Behaviour

Concept

These Layers best show what an interaction designer should be doing.

NOTE: This is how we approached our design situation for Project One. Listing behaviours and understanding a concept, before understanding a behaviour, then creating a product. 

Finally, Cooper makes the interesting observation in regards to consumer technology democratisation. In the past, highly skilled, complex machines required highly skilled users. As technology has become more complex, cheaper and more available, the skill levels of operators and the simplicity of design have not followed suit. This is incredibly evident and understandable.