Carefully observe objects or devices around you and find ONE that you feel has significant design flaws. Choose either a> Badly designed object
> Badly designed display/control
> Badly designed signage/labelling
Observe how people interact with the bad design and what problems occur. Document in photographs.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE IMAGES FROM THE WEB: ONLY ORIGINAL IMAGES PLEASE!
“Badly-designed” in this context means that users misunderstand the designer’s intent, resulting in erroneous usage. The designer’s solution could have been seriously flawed or doesn’t follow human factors principles. Focus on communication and interaction problems, such as package designs which cause the user to open it the wrong way eventually causing the contents to spill, or confusing road signage which could cause a driver to make the wrong move. Choose objects which cause confusion in operation as a result of the designer’s ignorance or misjudgement of how the user would interact with it. Unacceptable cases include those that merely require “upgrading” or re-styling a seemingly old-fashioned product or graphic to reflect contemporary aesthetics. Lack of durability, wasteful consumables, environmental damage, unappealing colours, wrong fonts, old-fashioned logos, etc. are likewise issues NOT appropriate for this assignment. This project is NOT about badly designed shapes, forms or graphics.
Present the following analysis in your blog site by Week 10 (Oct 10):
> Before: Images of the badly designed case, with annotations as to the design errors present. Highlight how the design causes human errors.
> After: Scanned sketch of suggested improvement. Describe how your suggestion will reduce human error. (You may want to sketch on translucent paper and scan the tracing paper as an overlay over the original image. You may also use PhotoShop or similar software to edit the existing image).
References
Norman D. 1990. The Design of Everyday Things
http://www.ease-of-use.org.uk/
Don Norman: The Design of Future Things
Don Norman: Cautious Cars & Cantankerous Kitchens
Cartoon from The Born Loser,11 May 1986
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