This weekend my husband and I spent some time with his Aunt Melinda in Springville, Utah. We had a lot of fun, zip lining, hanging some of the art she bought in Europe on her walls, driving around in her old Volkswagen Beetle, and carving pumpkins. Something that I admire about Melinda is her ability to make use out of things that you normally would just throw away. She recycles and reuses everything, especially plastic yogurt or salad containers. She has learned to recognize the affordances of boxes, containers, clothing, camping gear, you name it.
For example, the 4 pieces art that we hung on her wall this weekend were all framed in antique oak. I asked her how she found the frames, since they all matched perfectly to the unique sizes of the art and each other. She didn't find them. What she found was an old piece of furniture that was no longer good as furniture and had a friend craft the wood into the 4 frames that she needed.
Most people would find the old furniture and think of probably some of these perceived affordances: furniture makeover or repurpose it with new paint and details, throw it away or use it for fire wood. Melinda, however, could see an affordance that many might not, turn it into picture frames!
The more I read The Design of Everyday Things the more vindicated I feel as a human being. I usually feel pretty stupid when I catch myself in the middle of an action or task only to realize that I have switched tasks. These little slips aren't necessarily my fault, they are a part of how I learned how to do something. I think what is most important to take away from slips and mistakes is to consider them as we design things that people interact with. If I am designing a mobile app, and I am aware of a gesture or common place where people click or swipe, they I may not want to place clickable things in those places, to prevent frustration or confusion.
Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think also brought to my attention that our job is to eliminate questions. "Can I click on that?" or "Are those two things the same?" Every question distracts us, and takes time to recover from those distractions. I am just learning how to use Google Analytics. If you watch the analytics of a website for a company, seconds or time on a web could mean many different things. Especially if you are trying to decide which information is more important or which page will be more profitable to your business. If a user is confused about what is on your website that could be really damaging. The goal is to have the user flow through the site as effortlessly as possible. Having a website that functions well is almost like the analogy of the gold fish that doesn't realize what water really is until he's out of it.
