Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Design of Everyday Things Questions

1. I feel that the author's key points in this chapter were that even the simplest products now a days are getting to hard to work and understand. Products are now trying to do more stuff making the product complicated to many people. Norman also made a key point about feedback and how that is not being used as much today as it used to making the companies think they are making products fine and they keep on advancing with that product.

2. A specific object that I have had difficulty using was a new DVD/VCR recorder that my mom had gotten as a Christmas gift. The design contributed to the difficulty because there were two sets of the same buttons on each side and at first it was difficult to tell which set of buttons worked with which function. The usability arose because some things were just not that visible and some buttons had different functions for them.

3. The designers of the iPod did a very good job at addressing the principles that Norman discussed. The iPod is a very simple product to use. All the buttons are pretty easy to read and use. The scroll wheel also makes it easy to scroll through songs and options if you are in the menu part. The iPod is a product that can be used by most people.

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