Technological developments for the digital environment

4. Design Matters

• There are a variety of principle design imperatives:
  • Behavioral: usability & functionality
  • Reflective: meaning & orientation
  • Visceral: emotional, pleasure, aesthetic
• The design should match the goals and demographic.
• Technological designs often go wrong:
  • Innovation is faster than human evolution & adaptation.
  • Aesthetics do not equal usability.
  • Designers are not typical users.
  • Designers work to please clients, not end-users.
  • Design is for every-person; however, we are all special.
  • Gulf of Evaluation is too wide (difference between perceived and interpretable physical representation of system and intended actions).
  • Gulf of Execution is too wide (difference between user action intention and outcome).
• Computer/software designs in particular often go wrong:break most of the rules of good design.

• Most users end up spending an inordinate amount of time working on the computer rather than on the problem.
• Creeping featurism.
• Worshiping false complexity.
• One can take steps to improve the outcome of technological designs
  • Perhaps close the windows: Right now, systems are designed for generalist use. Systems
    might work better as they are pruned and designed specifically for a smaller set of terms and functions.
  • Proper balance of required knowledge in the head and knowledge in the world.
    • Affordances (perceived and actual properties of objects which provide clues as to how they work)
    • Visibility (state of device and action alternatives).
    • Strong conceptual model (coherent, consistent, predictable system image).
    • Good mappings (clear relationships among actions-results, controls-effects, system
      state-actions-outcomes).
    • Feedback (full, continuous, accurate info. about the results of actions.
    • Test, retest, be flexible