Brad Twitty
Devin McKaskle
Summary
The Design of Everyday Things discussed objects that we use in our day to day lives such as telephones and doors. The author discussed the flaws in many of these objects in addition to giving positive examples that showed good design. In his examples, the author pointed out how each object could be improved or how it was well thought out and made the use of it simpler. The overall design quality desired by the author was a simple yet effective device.
Discussion
This book explored some interesting views on things in everyday life. It did a good job of mixing in humor (showing comical examples of bad design) to keep the audience engaged. The author also mixed in some personal examples which made the reading interesting. While parts of this book entertained me, the vast majority of it was repetitive to the point of being frustrating. I feel like this book could have been trimmed in half and not lost much of its meaning or effectiveness. It felt as though I were reading a book for a child who needs things to be drilled into his head in order for him to retain any of it. While giving numerous examples improved the book, the author didn't need to explain each story immediately after when each example was making the same point. This annoyed me as I was reading and subsequently distracted me from the point the author was trying to make and actually made the book less effective.
UI/Design
The Dvorak Standard Keyboard (DSK) is a design that I like. While the author of The Design of Everyday Things prefers to substitute functionality for simplicity, I prefer a more functional design that is more efficient and takes a little longer to learn. They QWERTY keyboard is a good example of a keyboard that isn't intuitive but is preferred by the vast majority of users to the more intuitive alphabetical keyboard. In being favored so heavily, the QWERTY keyboard has become the expected layout and to the skilled typist is considered "the norm." There are many arguements against replacing it with the more efficient DSK design, the majority of which focus on the time it takes to learn to type on one verses the trade-off of typing speed. I beleive the trade-off is a fair one and that in the long term, it would be more advantageous to switch standard layouts to the DSK.
I agree that the DVORAK is a better designed keyboard layout. That said though, I was taught to use the QWERTY. I guess that students need to be educated on the layouts at a younger age, so that we can determine how we would rather learn to type. I assume the ideal would be a keyboard that let the user pick their layout easily. I know there are some keyboards that allow this to happen, but they are far too expensive for the common user. That said, maybe as design becomes more and more important maybe we will switch toward the DVORAK, I know I would like to see that happen.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/
ReplyDeleteThe easy to change keyboard, all the keys can change.
I may be one of the few people that doesn't see why the DVORAK is better than the QWERTY. However, I agree that efficiency should take priority over the simplicity. But there is also the question of whether the benefits of changing to the DVORAK layout outweight the costs.
ReplyDeleteThe Dvorak layout does have its benefits. On one hand, you have people who have used QWERTY their entire lives and can only type <50wpm. These are probably the people who type with two fingers, look at the keyboard, or the old people..I kid (sorta).
ReplyDeleteThen, you have the more advanced users who can type somewhere in the range of 70-80wpm. I would categorize myself in this "advanced user" level. People in this level probably don't type 24/7, but may use the computer for everyday activities such as emailing, school work, etc.
Then of course there is the expert/freaky group that consistently type 100+. These are usually the people that have some sort of data-entry jobs or type..whatever..all day for a living.
Now the first group probably won't benefit at all by switching, because they're going to type the same speed no matter what layout they're using. I would say that switching is arguable for the second group. I don't feel like I'm hindered in any way by the speed that I type and can easily complete my day-to-day activities. In my opinion, the expert-level user would see the most benefit out of this. An increase in typing speed for this group, over the course of an entire day, could result in a very large increase in productivity.
I'm too lazy to learn something new. To each his own.
I heard that the Dvorak studies aren't conclusive.
ReplyDeleteThanks, XKCD! http://xkcd.com/561/