Have you ever walked up to a door and wondered how to open it? Do you push it, pull it or turn the knob? Don Norman once said, “An ideal door is one where that as I walk up to it and walk through it, I'm not even aware that I had opened a door and shut it.” Don Norman is known for his best-selling books and as the director of The Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego. In his book, The Design of Everyday Things, he talks about the design of doors in the world. Most people never think about such trivial things like opening and closing a door, but if you stop and pay attention, you will realize that most of them are poorly designed. In fact, I think the only door that has been somewhat designed in my time is the door of most passenger cars. When you get in or out of a passenger car you don't really think about how to open the door, you just do it. There are so many things that have been designed in our lives that User-Centered design is super important. We are the "users" in the term User-Centered. You and I interact with objects in the real-world and the design of them effects us whether we realize it or not, yet most people don't even think about it. I have seen people just accept a terrible design and continue to struggle through using something that could clearly be designed better. For example, the design of the buttons on most microwaves is not very intuitive at all. There are usually buttons with numbers and symbols on them that represent food items. Most of them have a pop-corn button, that is supposed to cook microwave pop-corn. That's great if you are making pop-corn, but most people don't cook pop-corn in a microwave often. Then there is a start or stop button which makes sense, but they never work the same on any given microwave. How many times have you walked up to a microwave you have never used and had to stop to look at the buttons and figure out how to enter the time and get it to start cooking? I know I have done that many times. I think the interface on microwaves should be redesigned. Even the handle or button to open most microwaves can be confusing. Thats just one example of all the stuff that we use in our lives has been designed for us to use. User-Centered design is extremely important to everyone.
Getting back to my door analogy. I mentioned how most doors are poorly designed with the exception of modern car doors. Take the door handle on the ultra-modern, battery powered Tesla cars for example, when you walk up to a Tesla with the key in your pocket the car has a proximity sensor that triggers the door handle to pop-out and unlocks it automatically. How cool is that? The door handle is actually flush with the car when it is locked and the owner is not near it with the key. This design is a really high-tech and cool feature, but it also serves to protect your vehicle from theft. Imagine if you were a thief trying to open the door on a Tesla to get in side and steal it. It would be very difficult to even open the door without the handle popping out first. What a great User-Centered design that makes getting in and out of a Tesla very easy and keeps the vehicle protected at the same time. I won't get into what could happen if the battery dies on a Tesla and you were not able to get in the car, but it is a battery powered car so I think you would have bigger problems if the battery dies. Tesla is not the only car company with well designed doors. Most car makers today have designed very functional doors.
As a graphic designer I am constantly observing my surroundings and looking for great design. As a teacher I am always looking for a teachable moment in my life. A time when I can learn something and pass that knowledge on to someone else. I think we can all learn from User-Centered design in the products we use everyday. I can only hope to be inspired and improve my designs and even teach others how to use them without them even knowing it!
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Hello future business leaders! Welcome to Mr. Parrott's website. I will be teaching Fundamentals of Business and Virtual Enterprises International for the 2018-2019 school year. I would like to welcome you to my class.
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AuthorMr. Parrott is the CTE Business Pathway Instructor at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove, CA. Archives
January 2019
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