1. A device is easy to use when there is visibility to the set of possible actions, where the controls and displays exploit natural mappings.The principles are simple but rarely incorporated into design.Good design takes care, planning, though. It takes conscious attention to the needs of the use. And sometimes the designer gets it right.
I found this passage above in Donald Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" to be very interesting.It really makes you thinnk about designs and how a majority of these designs fail to satisfy the poeple. After reading the passage, as an opinion, I felt like designers go about designing things by themselves to make their ideas come to life and to be unique. As if they are building things to suite an audience that is more compatiable with them and while doing so they lose sight of the general public who, in most cases, like the simplicity, visibility and affordances of a good conceptual model.
2. Norman's book still continues to be influential 20 years later because he shows the importance of design in our everyday lives. He uses real life examples to convey the consequences and effects of a bad design. The actual topic of his book also has an influential impact on the books long term success mainly because products are designed everyday and consumers will always have to deal with having a bad conceptual model that rarley gets feedback ,doesn't show visibile sign, or has more controls than it has buttons.All the criticism on designs makes the designers take time to really test a design to make sure its right.
3. Based on this chapter, the factors that I would include on a checklist for evaluating the design of a product is its visibility, natural mapping, affordances of materials used,simplicity, and whether or not its a good conceptual model.
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