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Cognitive Aspects of Design

This document discusses cognitive aspects of design and how to design for usability. It covers four main aspects of cognition: visibility, affordances, mapping, and conceptual models and feedback. It also discusses how people perform tasks in seven stages and how design can support each stage. The document advocates for user-centered design based on understanding users' needs and abilities. It provides principles for simplifying difficult tasks such as making aspects of the design visible, having proper mappings between controls and functions, and designing to minimize errors.

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Langdovids
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10 views

Cognitive Aspects of Design

This document discusses cognitive aspects of design and how to design for usability. It covers four main aspects of cognition: visibility, affordances, mapping, and conceptual models and feedback. It also discusses how people perform tasks in seven stages and how design can support each stage. The document advocates for user-centered design based on understanding users' needs and abilities. It provides principles for simplifying difficult tasks such as making aspects of the design visible, having proper mappings between controls and functions, and designing to minimize errors.

Uploaded by

Langdovids
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Cognitive Aspects of Design

From: The Design of Everyday


Things by Donald Norman (1988)
The Psychology of Everyday
Things
•  “study people, take their needs and interests
int account”
Conceptual model for refrigerator

Fresh
Freezer
Food
Thermostat Thermostat
Fresh
Freezer
Food
Control
Cold Air Control
Cold Air

Cooling Cooling
Unit Unit
Conceptual models
Make things visible
•  The principle of mapping
•  The principle of feedback
Using sound for visibility
•  The click when the bolt on the door slides home
•  The “zzz” sound when a zipper works properly
•  The “tiny” sound when a door doesn’t shut right
•  The roaring sound when a car muffler gets a hole
•  The rattle when things aren’t secured
•  The whistle of the kettle when the water boils
•  The click when the toast pops up
•  The increase in pitch when a vacuum cleaner gets
clogged
How people do things:
The seven stages of action
•  Forming the goal
•  Forming the intention
•  Specifying the action
•  Executing the action
•  Perceiving the state of the world
•  Interpreting the state of the world
•  Evaluating the outcome
Goals; execution, evaluation!
The seven stages of action as
design aids: How easy can one
determine the functions of the
device?
•  Tell what actions are •  Tell is systems is in
possible? desired state?
•  Determine the •  Determine the
mapping from mapping from system
intention to physical state to interpretation?
movement? •  Tell what state the
•  Perform the action? system is in?
4 Aspects of Cognition
1. Visibility
2. Affordances
3. Mapping
4. Conceptual models and feedback
Visibility
1.  Visibility tells the state of the device and
the alternatives for action just by looking.
Affordances
1.  Affordances pertain to constraints e.g.
signaling some appropriate actions.
•  Physical – large peg and small hole
•  Semantics – meaningful location of rider,
e.g., sit facing forward
•  Cultural - colors
•  Logical
Mapping
1.  Natural mappings work by providing
logical constraints. Good mapping
determines the relationships between
actions and results, between the controls
and their effects, and between the system
state and what is visible.
•  In relation to arrangement of controls…
reduce the need for information in memory.
Ergonomics – concerned with the relationship
between designed products or systems and
the people who use them. Knowledge of
anatomy, physiology and psychology is of
enormous hel
Use of ergonomics:
•  keyboards, remote control, telephone
•  handling and using tools and instruments
•  sitting
•  carrying loads in outdoor pursuit
•  drying hair
•  noise nuisance
Conceptual models and feedback
1.  Conceptual models and feedback give
back action an immediate and obvious
effect. In feedback, the user receives full
and continuous feedback about the results
of actions.
A good conceptual model
•  The designer provides a good conceptual
model for the user with consistency in the
presentation of operations and results and a
coherent, consistent system image.
Part Two: POET - The
psychology of everyday things
Why Designers Go Astray?
The nature of everyday tasks
“Most tasks of daily life are routine, requiring
little thought or planning”.

“Everyday activities must usually de done


relatively quickly, often simultaneous with
other activities. Neither time nor mental
resources may be available”.
Conscious and Subconscious
Behavior
“Subconscious thought matches patterns…It
is good at detecting general trends, at
recognizing the relationship between what
we now experience and what has happened
in the past. And is good at generalizing, and
making predictions about the general trend
based on few examples”.
“Conscious thought is slow and labored…
Conscious thought ponders first, i.e.,
comparing, rationalizing, finding
explanations. Formal logic, mathematics,
decision theory: these are the tools of
conscious thoughts”.
Designing for Error
Explaining away errors
“Seldom does a major accident occur
without numerous failures…In many cases,
the people involved noted the problem but
explained it away, finding a logical
explanation for the otherwise deviant
observation”.
Social pressure and mistakes
*Social structure is every bit as essential as
physical structure
Normal behavior isn’t always
accurate!
Design so that errors are easy to
discover and corrections are possible
Precise behavior can emerge
from imprecise knowledge, if:
•  Information is in the world.
•  Great precision is not required.
•  Natural constraints are present.
•  Cultural constraints are present.
What designers should do:
1.  Understand the causes of error and design to minimize
those causes.
2.  Make it possible to reverse actions- to “undo” them – or
make it harder to do what cannot be reversed.
3.  Make it easier to discover the errors that do occur, and
make them easier to correct.
4.  Change the attitude toward errors. Think of an object’s
user as attempting to do a task, getting there by
imperfect approximations. Don’t think of the user as
making errors; think of the actions as approximations of
what is desired.
The Design Challenge
If everyday design were ruled by
aesthetics,…pleasing but less
comfortable; if ruled by usability,…
comfortable but uglier; if cost or
ease of manufacture, …might not be
attractive, functional or duarble.
Why Designers Go Astray?
Putting aesthetics first.
Designers are not typical users.
The designer’s clients may not be users.
The complexity of the design process
The complexity of the design
process
Designing for special people.
Selective attention: The problem of focus.
Deadly temptations for the designers
2 Deadly Temptations for the
Designer
1. Creeping featurism
The tendency to add to the number of
features that a device can do, often
extending the number beyond all reason.
2. The worshipping of false images
The point of POET is to advocate a
user-centered design, a philosophy
based on the needs and interests of
the user, with the emphasis on
making products
usable and understandable.
Seven Principles for Transforming
Difficult Tasks into Simple Ones
1.  Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge
in the head.
2.  Simplify the structure of tasks.
3.  Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of
Execution and Evaluation.
4.  Get the mappings right.
5.  Exploit the power of constraints, both natural
and artificial.
6.  Design for error.
7.  When all else fails, standardize.
…

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