Reference Information
Title: Living With Complexity
Author: Donald A. Norman
Editors: The MIT Press (2010)
Summary
Chapter 3: How Simple Things Can Complicate Our Mind (26 pages)
Donald Norman talks about how things get increasingly complicated when the number of items increases. Passwords for example, are an instance of this. He then goes on to talk about how we cope with information by putting it in the world. People will sometimes put passwords under their monitor.
"Scaling" is a problem that works well sometimes but fails as the number grows. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need signs and too much information makes things complicated. FOrcing functions on items provides many benefits.
Chapter 4: Social Signifiers (22 pages)
Social signifiers are indicators that an environment allows people to navigate in complex environment. These things are referred to as perceived affordances. He talks about the importance of signifiers as they provide clues to the world and how people should act.
Discussion
I liked when Norman talked about traffic and how people perceive that there are accidents ahead when many times there are not. Usually the cause for the slowdown is the compounding of brake lights or people waiting for the person in front of them to go during green lights.
Chapter 3: How Simple Things Can Complicate Our Mind (26 pages)
Donald Norman talks about how things get increasingly complicated when the number of items increases. Passwords for example, are an instance of this. He then goes on to talk about how we cope with information by putting it in the world. People will sometimes put passwords under their monitor.
"Scaling" is a problem that works well sometimes but fails as the number grows. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need signs and too much information makes things complicated. FOrcing functions on items provides many benefits.
Chapter 4: Social Signifiers (22 pages)
Social signifiers are indicators that an environment allows people to navigate in complex environment. These things are referred to as perceived affordances. He talks about the importance of signifiers as they provide clues to the world and how people should act.
Discussion
I liked when Norman talked about traffic and how people perceive that there are accidents ahead when many times there are not. Usually the cause for the slowdown is the compounding of brake lights or people waiting for the person in front of them to go during green lights.
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