This reading reminded me largely of some of the feedback that Aaron gave in class on our first assignments. He asked a lot of us in the class what the purposes of our projects were, and if there are any practical uses for them. As well (including during the feedback session for the second assignment), he also commented on the usefulness and how easy it was for the user to use that creation.
What the author of the text, Norman, does really well is in explaining why some designs, though may be aesthetically pleasing, do not work well. The author points to the ideas of visibility, affordance, conceptual and mental models, and mapping to explain the paradox of technology – which is the idea that “the same technology that simplifies life by providing more functions in each device also complicates life by making the device harder to learn and harder to use”. What I found interesting, in addition, was the author’s assertion that the paradox of technology “should never be used as an excuse for poor design”.
For me, the last line of the chapter, “added complexity and difficulty cannot be avoided when functions are added, but with clever design, they can be minimised”, is the essential takeaway from this reading. From Aaron’s feedback, I have already started to think about all my projects in the sense that they could provide a practical use (in such a way that a product could actually be developed, produced, and sold). The reading emphasised this mindset and consolidated the idea that there is a need for good designs.