Week Three: A Reflection on Theory

 Donald Norman’s 6 Design Principles:

1. Visibility:

The more visible the function, the more likely the user is to understand. Essentially make the process as visual as possible and don’t hide functions from the user. 

2. Feedback:

Feedback refers to sending information back to the user. Fairly self-explanatory. It is important that the user knows that the input has been entered as well as if it had been entered correctly or incorrectly.

3. Constraints:

Constraints refers to designing an interaction that limits the amount of possible inputs the user can use. This ensures that the user doesn’t get overwhelmed or confused by the interaction process.

4. Mapping:

Mapping is incredibly important to the interaction design process. It involves the rationalisation of an object by the user and an understanding of physical controls in relation to the outcome of the control. This point will be vital in our project.

5. Consistency:

Consistency refers to ensuring that actions have consistent responses every time you do them. Its fairly self explanatory, but it is a fundamental law of interaction design.

6. Affordance:

Affordance refers to designing a physical medium that matches users perceptions. For example, a mouse button, “looks” like it should be pushed.

Application to Our Potential Concept:

Norman’s principles are incredibly important when designing an interaction and our group will strive to apply them to our project. For example, in our fictitious  scenario, more than one person must receive feedback and visibility is paramount.

However, some of the “Input” methods which we use void several design principles. For example, Mapping would be difficult to comprehend with an audio input.

Tomorrow: A Reflection on "The Inmates are Running The Asylum"