Interactions - July/August 2009

We must turn
our attention

tumbling down. We will devote more space, time, and energy to providing and maintaining infrastructure than to the services they are intended to provide.

The infrastructure of our computer technology can be overwhelming. My computer’s infrastructure gets more complex each year, and all this complexity requires attention: upgrades and security modifications; password changes for many accounts; an up-to-date list of passwords synchronized across all my computers; the need to reboot, defragment, do continual scans for viruses and malcontent software; the need to renew batteries and accounts and file backups. It seems that every day I spend considerable time on infrastructure.

Because the ability to maintain infrastructure is seldom designed with care, each simple activity can become daunting. Each new device requires installation, complete with registration, agreeing to unread but undoubtedly onerous legal conditions, and finding space and sockets for all the communication and power cables. Did I mention that these invariably require stopping all work, saving everything, and rebooting, after typing in a long, complex registration number?

I am reminded of the ways in which our physical infrastructures get modified. No sooner does a street get paved than a new set of workers arrives to cut holes and trenches into it so they can add their own sub-street layers. Each trench requires a myriad of permissions. The trench is dangerous, so warning signs must be

posted. In some cases, the signs themselves can be dangerous, so they require attention-draw-ing flashing lights. Even that is not enough, so sometimes it is necessary to add signs warning of the warning signs.

Infrastructure is taken for granted, but it’s time to pay it as much attention as the primary applications. Otherwise, maintaining the infrastructure will itself become our primary activity. In an earlier column I proclaimed Norman’s Law:

The number of hours per day spent maintaining our equipment doubles every 18 months.

Spend an hour a day maintaining infrastructure, and within five iterations—slightly over seven years—the day will be completely filled.

It is time to work on our infrastructure, which threatens to dominate our lives with ugliness, frustration, and work. We need to spend more time on infrastructure design. We need to make it more attractive, more accessible, and easier to maintain. Infrastructure is intended to be hidden, to provide the foundation for everyday life. If we do not respond, it will dominate our lives, preventing us from attending to our priority concerns and interests. Instead, we’ll just be keeping ahead of maintenance demands.

to infrastructural
needs. We must
insist on standards,
or where we lack the
political power to
enforce them, invent
methods that allow
competing systems
to coexist without
a proliferation of
technologies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Don Norman wears many hats, including cofounder of the Nielsen Norman group, professor at Northwestern University, visiting professor at KAIST (South Korea), and author. His latest book is The Design of Future Things. He lives at jnd.org.