Living With Complexity
Donald Norman
2011 MIT Press Donald Norman
Chapter 1: Living With Complexity
This is a standard opening chapter for Donald Norman, it sets up the various kinds of things that he is going to talk about in the book, and in this case, that is various types of complexity that we face each day. He starts by talking about the kinds of complexity that we face each day. He also talks about various situations in which we have objects or events that will make us face something that will be complex for us. He then talks about the examples we see and read about everyday that are complex for no reason but we still use them. He talks about sports, calculators, coffee, and various other devices that are quite simple on paper but once are made are rather complex. He says it comes to down to an idea of how familiar we are with something and how much technology changes devices we are used to seeing.
This chapter was interesting in that Norman did provide A LOT of rather relevant examples. However in some cases I don't think he explained them all the way. In the baseball example he talked about the infield fly rule and why it is complex, but his explanation of how it worked and what it is used for was more complex than the rule actually is. He also didn't entirely explain why people would want to always drop the ball and how this catches players off base (couldn't they simply take one base and then pause?). The other examples were along a similar vein, and that is the strangest coffee maker that I have ever seen.
Chapter 2: Simplicity is in the Mind
In this chapter Norman suggests that we only live with complexity because we choose to and because it is in various features we find all throughout our lives. He suggests that things like the water cycle and light switches are only complex because of the way that they are presented. If we can get a nice mental model of how something works in our minds then it is much more easy to understand it. He also says that mental models are a basic fundamental of being able to understand complexity and if we can find out how to make a better mental model of what we want a product to be we can make it better for users. He also talks about how more buttons does not necessarily make something better or more complex, and sometimes it does he gives a good example of how Apply found this with their mice.
I actually liked this chapter a bit, there was some good example and the chapter actually flowed quite nicely. I think however in this case he didn't really relate much of this back to computer science, and if he did I had a hard time finding it. I also like that in this book he is using a lot more pictures so that the reader can better understand things and gives us a good relational model as to what hes talking about and referring to. I think that this chapter had some good information and made a lot of sense in terms of CHI and GUI creation.
Chapter 3: How Simple Things can Complicate Our Lives
This chapter Norman talks about different things that we use that actually make our lives more complicated. He talks about idea of trying to use signs to make things easier to understand but in reality it might simply make your life more complicated. He talks about how he has tried systems that include using different colors of sticky tabs and various things but then after awhile he starts to associate things that have nothing to do with his reminder with them. He tries to argue a few things that will make your life less complex but really I don't see how many of these work.
Norman in this chapter seems to go back to his classical examples in all of his other books trying to show the similarities between them and why they apply to CHI. The problem with this is that none of his example seems to make a whole lot of sense. He talks a lot about security passwords and trying to see if even security experts will know how to make sure their password is secure and various things. It did not surprise me however, that they didn't do much better with their passwords than the average person.
Chapter 4: Social Signifier
In this chapter we learn about signifier, which are things that let us know how a device is supposed to be used. These are apparently in some way different than affordances, they talk about variations on objects that cannot be described using affordances. How he says these are different is that unlike affordances which just tell us how to do something signifier actually force us to do an action that restrain our choices and our complexity in this way. His most significant example is probably a salt and pepper shaker and how there is only really one way to use them and we are forced to use them in the way they are expected to.
This chapter was a bit more interesting but it did seem like another chapter on affordances really more than anything. I don't see how these two things are that much different that it requires its own chapter but when he explains it you do get two different definitions. I think that we could even argue that despite signifiers some things can still be quite complex. Just because we see something and have a decent mental model of how to use it doesn't mean that it is any more or less complex.
Full Blog:
The book did cover some really good points about things that are complex and why we perceive them as such. We as engineers sometimes are really unable to see things the way they are intended to be but as we understand and develop models we can see them easier for what they are. We can also use this knowledge to reduce complexity by introducing signs and signifiers to make them more useful. There is a few pictures that are used and the avid reader is able to see how the pictures help the examples and there are captions that go along with the pics that provide other information.
I was trying to be objective about the pictures but in Norman's books we don't get a lot of pictures so they really were helpful and I had been asking for them in blogs of his other books. I like that he was able to give examples and then relate them to the pics that were provided. In all I thought these chapters were rather good but I think that the signifier chapter was a bit much considering that he talks about affordances and how they are so much different. The book seems good but I think it was a basic Norman book.
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