The Design of
Future Things
Don Norman
Basic Books, 2007
ISBN 978-0-465-00227-6
$27.50
Reviewed by Gerard Torenvliet
Esterline CMC Electronics |
Gerard. Torenvliet@CMCElectronics.ca
When I was in university studying human-computer interaction, the first paper that I ever wrote was
a review of automation issues in the design of aircraft cockpits. One author cited was Don Norman,
then a cognitive psychologist at the University of
California, San Diego (he is now at Northwestern
University). While other researchers were arguing that development had to be slowed because
automation had come too far, too fast, Norman
instead argued that most problems with automation had arisen because the field hadn’t progressed
far enough. He thought that the advanced automation of the day was unable to provide the rich
and nuanced feedback required for it to be a true
partner with pilots in the cockpit. This argument
made sense to me, but at the time I concluded that
Norman’s perspective would be difficult to apply
as of the early 1990s. As my freshman pen put it,
“Norman’s solutions lie in the future.”
Fourteen years later Norman and I are still in
a dialogue about automation. I now make a living thinking about how to design work support
(which includes automation) for pilots, and he’s
making a living thinking about the future. When
I heard that Norman was releasing a book to help
everyday people understand and demand more of
the increasingly automated technology that the
future will offer, my interest was piqued. I wanted
to see if Norman would be able to do for the design
of future things what he so successfully did for
the design of everyday things in his 1998 book of
the same name. In The Design of Everyday Things,
he helped to make complex topics in cognitive
psychology and product design accessible to the
general reader, while at the same time prompting
specialists to see connections they may not have
noticed before. Would Norman’s secret sauce be
strong enough to do the same for the challenging
issues involved in the design and use of advanced
automation and intelligent machines?
Norman starts his investigation of the design
of future things by taking a frank look at the
advanced technologies that already surround us.
He admires the ways in which technology has
helped to improve our lives, while at the same
time giving the reader eyes to see the limitations
of these same technologies more clearly. Instead
of griping about supposed “bad design” (a strange
expertise possessed by design experts), Norman’s
tone is supportive; he points out problems only
to make the reader a part of the solution. The
emergent thesis is that humans and technology are doomed to be locked in a bad marriage
until we come to terms with the fundamental
and unchangeable limitations of our relationship.
Technologists aspire to create a dialogue between
humans and machines, but a prerequisite for
dialogue is a common understanding of context.
Norman thinks that machines will never be able
to develop an understanding of context anywhere
as deep, broad, and flexible as humans, nor do
they have rich enough means of communication.
So our marriage is one with monologues from
the machine being met by monologues from us.
Dialogue will never result, because two monologues don’t equal a dialogue.
Without dialogue between us and our machines,
it often feels as if they control us. Norman argues
that this is a natural consequence of machines
being weak. Their weakness means that they lack