Revisiting An Old Design Classic
Reflections on reading Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things
Six years into my previous job, I gave in my resignation. My colleagues saw me off with kind words and a gift card. There was just enough credit on the card to purchase a Bialetti Moka Pot and a copy of Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. This is how the book entered my life for the second time.
On trying to remember when I read it last, a vivid image comes to my mind. An image of a younger version of myself posing with the book in my hands. I wasn’t reading. I was trying hard to fit in amongst the designers around me. The very mention of the book often opens the floodgates for such memories from 15 years ago when I was an undergraduate design student.
A Strange Flashback
I trace back to an Industrial Design professor by the name of Uday Athwankar whose insights into Human Behaviour and Psychology demanded our fascination from the moment we witnessed it in action. Much like a circus animal, perhaps a Pomeranian or a Tiger, that performed tricks we otherwise thought them incapable of. Were Designers meant to apply Psychology in their work? Was it natural?
Athwankar Sir, as we called him, mentored us for a few months as a part of a special design research initiative. Under his guidance, we researched how Indians bartered and exchanged products. Months of research converged into a tangible solution — a mobile application that could facilitate the exchange of these products.
“Put yourself in the shoes of your users” is the advice we often received in design school. For us students that meant recreating a scenario, performing a similar task, or even sitting in the same chair as one of our users. We developed our idea further by role-playing conversations about bartering physical goods over telephone calls. We listened to ourselves say things like “I have a memory-stick to offer” or “I could give you this product in exchange for that.” But it wasn’t the mere posing like users that we were being taught to do.
Athwankar Sir directed our attention to the negotiations that took place within those conversations. How did one assign value to the products they were about to barter? How did the other person receive this information? And ultimately, how was an exchange decision made?
We were receiving a simple lesson — to think like our users. Posing was just the start of that process.
However, it isn’t a lesson in Psychology that I take away from this strange flashback. Instead it made me wonder if posing with Norman’s book was the start of a more personal process for me — to think like a Designer.
Second Reading
Many years have passed since then. I’m no longer a design student. I have spent more time practicing design than I have been enrolled in formal design education.
Professionally, I find myself transitioning into roles I never imagined I would undertake. My seniors allow me to lead design projects and even trust me with mentoring younger designers. I have become an advocate for Design in every meeting I attend.
To help me navigate these new waters I turn to Norman’s book, once again. Perhaps seeking answers to old questions, or simply to reacquaint myself with the basics that I might have overlooked. And while I was nodding at the lessons in the book, it had the added effect of prying open my own mind.
It kick-started a process of reflection about my own habits as a Designer.
I now find myself increasingly influenced by tricks that help me get done with work more efficiently.
Lack of resources, time constraints, and phantom users — the new normals of my trade — have taught me to design more intuitively rather than intentionally.
This has become a sort of coping mechanism to survive the high-speed-low-resource environments I design in. And this is a dangerous place to be. Because no one wants a designer who compromises on quality just to get things done.
Revisiting The Design of Everyday Things has served as a timely reminder to slow down. It has cautioned me against defaulting to the ‘efficient way’ of doing things, to seek quicker and faster ways of designing. It is a warning to avoid assuming how people think and behave, and more importantly, to stay away from designing based on such assumptions. In general, I take it as a gentle nudge to design with more intent.
Because that is the best way I could show that I care for the people who use the products and services I design.
