TechAmo

If there is one thing that I have learned from Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, it is not the users fault.  As the world becomes increasingly complex, design is becoming the make or break issue for any product.  Why is it that Apple has been so successful?  Why is Steve Jobs so highly revered in the tech industry?  Steve Jobs took extremely complex systems and made them intuitive, simple, elegant and beautiful.

When you pick up an iPod you don’t need to spend 2 hours poring through an instruction manual on how to operate the damn thing.  There are a few neat pictures that simply tell you the basics of plug the cord into the iPod and the other end to the computer and you’re ready to rock.  The motions of the controls fit with the first guess that pops into your brain for how a particular feature should operate.

The simple fact is, if you want to be able to reach the largest audience, you have to design intuitively for your Average Joe user. You can’t build a complicated system that is intuitive for the engineers of the world or one that demands that your users RTFM(Read The Fucking Manual).

RTFM is an excuse for laziness in design.

As Norman points out in his book, consumers develop this idea that they are being “bad” with technology.  They are simply interfacing with bad design.  My favorite example is the shower in most hotels.  As a frequent traveler with a degree in engineering I am constantly amazed at how inept I am at operating a shower without a decent amount of trial and error.

I have learned through Norman’s guidance to demand better in the products I design as well as the products I use.  However, better design comes at a higher price.  So the next time you buy a gadget with identical tech specs and a $100 cheaper price tag, most likely you are taking a cut in design.  Those tiny little things that hinder your work and make you feel like you are incapable of operating a simple device is where your $100 dollars went(capitalism works).
Demand more, pay more, live better.

I hit my teens during the golden age of Napster.  I can still remember the feeling when my older brother first brought me on board the HMS Napster for my first foray into piracy.  Music with a few keystrokes and a click.  I was hooked.

From that moment on the internet could only be free.  Movies, books, and software were all obtainable for the price of persistence and the equivalent of knowing the secret knock to a speakeasy.  Through the power of an insanely fast internet connection and some motivated geeks I could obtain a terabyte movies during the course of a day in college.

My point?  I am just a drop in the ocean of hackers who, inspired by the efforts of organizations like the RIAA, vowed to not pay for that which I could easily obtain through a download and a key-generator.  I couldn’t afford the $15 for a CD, or the $20 for a DVD let alone the $50+ cost of software packages.  Since I didn’t have a job my efforts went into schooling myself in the dark arts of computers and the internet.  This carried me through college keeping my iPod full and my entertainment costs at a minimum.

Then I graduated and got a job…  Making software.

Shit.

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