The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 7, a new addition to Norman’s book, focuses on external constraints to design. Costs, competition, and schedules are at odds with HCD, necessitating compromises. However, radical and incremental product innovation remains possible, despite these constraints.

Competitive Forces

Global competition forces corporations to prioritize price, features, quality, and speed. As Norman observes, these pressures are at odds with the iterative design process, which is by nature time-consuming. Companies that take too long to develop a product risk being scooped by other companies. When this happens to small companies, they must alter their product to avoid competing with wealthier rivals. Even established companies, however, operate with time and budgetary constraints. Indeed, most products have a maximum development cycle of two years, with new models entering development even before the preceding model has been released.

Many companies try to please customers and remain competitive by adding new features to their products, resulting in increasingly complex and powerful products. Creeping featurism, however, can make products unusable or hard to understand.

Competition drives many companies to copy competitors. However, research suggests that companies should focus on what they do well, rather than adding features that emulate those of their rivals (263). Good designers can bracket out competitive pressures to ensure that their products are understandable, coherent, and consistent, but to do so, they must have the support of company leadership.

New Technologies Force Change

Norman argues that technology is the prime driver of change. People have learned to type on small, portable devices with touch- and gesture-sensitive screens. Newer devices allow people to bypass typing altogether with speech understanding and handwriting recognition. Gesture-based systems have prompted designers to experiment with new arrangements of letters to maximize speed with a stylus or single finger. These designers, however, encountered a legacy problem, namely, users who were unwilling to do away with QWERTY.

Human needs are relatively stable. New technologies may supplement old ones, but the human need to communicate—whether in writing, verbally, or through videos—remains constant.

How Long Does It Take to Introduce a New Product?

In this section, Norman explains that the time from invention to finished product is generally measured in months, but that it can take decades for companies to make products and for consumers to accept them. Finding components that can be made cheaply, reliably, and in sufficient quantities slows innovation. Conventions also hinder change, allowing obsolete products to remain on the market longer than they should. As Norman notes, technologies are “fast to be invented, slow to be accepted, even slower to fade away and die” (268).

For example, devices with knobs and physical keyboards remained popular long after the invention of touch technology, which was introduced in the 1980s (269). It took decades to transform the research into inexpensive, reliable products. Given the cost of failure, moreover, companies were slow to embrace the change. A 1998 startup called FingerWorks made important inroads in touch technology, only to run out of money before their products could reach a broad consumer base. Apple bought the company in 2005 and made touch technology the driving force behind its products.

According to Norman, it takes approximately 20 years to introduce a product (from the first demonstration in a lab to commercial release) and another decade or two for a broad public to adopt the product. Most innovations never reach the public. Even excellent products can fail, though some succeed if they are reintroduced at a later date.

Two Forms of Innovation: Incremental and Radical

Most innovation is incremental, not radical. Incremental innovation is slow and evolutionary. Automobiles, for instance, have gradually become faster, quieter, safer, more comfortable, and more efficient through a process called “hill climbing,” whereby a product is tested and modified until it reaches a peak and can no longer be improved. The introduction of the automobile, by contrast, was a radical innovation that reshaped cities and lifestyles.

New technologies, such as the invention of GPS satellites, tend to drive radical innovation. Technology can collapse industries to form bigger ones. For example, the internet combined diverse information providers, such as radio, television, print media, movies, and music, into a single medium. As Norman notes, most radical innovations fail, and those that succeed can take decades to become widespread

The Design of Everyday Things: 1988-2038

In this section, Norman speculates about future technological advancements. Unlike human physiology and culture, technology has undergone radical change in the last three decades. Future changes might include implants to enhance cognitive skills and new developments in bionic technologies to improve physical abilities. Critics hold that technology causes dependence, preventing people from navigating the world, writing, and holding intelligent conversations without it, but Norman stresses the benefits of technology for humankind, arguing that humans and technology are more capable together than they are individually: “Humans are strongest exactly where computers are weak, creating a potentially beautiful partnership” (287). Technology does not make people unintelligent, it simply changes the tasks that we do.

The Future of Books

In this section, Norman explores changes to book design, some of which he experimented with in the 1990s. Conventional books are read linearly, from front to back. By contrast, some new books are organized in sections that can be read in any order, while others combine writing with audio-visual components. Interactive books that allow users to click on pages for further explanations may be the way of the future. Such books require interdisciplinary teams to produce, including authors, editors, art directors, programmers, and interface designers. Norman asserts that new technologies can make books and other educational tools more effective and pleasurable to use. However, he does not cite studies showing the pedagogical benefits of interactive books, nor does he address issues of access and inequality.

The Moral Obligations of Design

Designers have a moral responsibility to create good products. However, companies would go out of business if they made their products too durable. Thus, most things are built with a limited lifespan to sustain sales. Modern cars and home appliances, for instance, stop working after a certain number of years. Similarly, clothes either fall apart or fall out of fashion far more quickly than they used to. Further, people now replace products that still function simply to have a newer model. This behavior is unsustainable and negatively impacts the environment. Although Norman touches on this issue, he does not explicitly engage with recent movements that attempt to broaden the field of HCD in response to such challenges, such as “environment-centered design” that advocates for more sustainable design and consumption.

Design Thinking and Thinking about Design

Norman concludes with a discussion of good design. A product is successful if people buy, use, and enjoy it. Well-designed products that people do not purchase are failures. Successful products are not only usable and understandable, but also elicit emotions, such as satisfaction, delight, and pride. In addition, successful products must be produced reliably, efficiently, and on time. If manufacturers cannot produce a product within defined financial and scheduling parameters, then the design is flawed. Marketing is also a key aspect of design, as it ensures that people will buy the product. Successful products also require support related to usage, repair, recycling, and disposal. In short, product development is complex and interdisciplinary, requiring creativity, business acumen, and social skills.

The rise of small, efficient tools has allowed individuals to perform new tasks, such as make their own music and publish their own books. Technology has also provided new paths to learning, notably, through blogs, Wikipedia, and how-to videos posted online. Similarly, the development of 3D printers has given individuals the tools to manufacture custom items. In these contexts, design has been an equalizing tool, providing free access to information with transformative capabilities. While technology is quick to change, however, human needs remain remarkably constant. Humans are social beings. Thus, the design principles of interaction will always remain relevant.