DESIGN FOR UNDERSTANDING

In The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman explains the two most important characteristics of good design, Discoverability, and Understanding. We covered what is discoverability in the previous post. Now let's take a look at Understanding.

If discoverability is a superpower, then making use of that superpower is "Understanding." In simple terms, Understanding demands how to use the product.

Why is it required?

Understanding is required because if you(designer) design a product, you want users to understand what is going on. Users should understand the meaning behind the functions of the product or the product itself.

The best example would be EDITH👓, Tony Stark's AR defense system in Spider-Man Far From Home. Remember the scene where Peter first uses EDITH to erase "the photo" from Brad's phone. Try to picture this scene from the design perspective, apply Discoverability and Understanding to it.

The scene,

The Discoverability, Peter puts on the glasses and says EDITH. (Voice Interaction)

The Understanding, EDITH explains what it can do with the use of the voice and badass graphics.

(Brad takes "the photo.")

The Discoverability, Peter says, "Um..., Brad Davis, he has a photo of me." 

EDITH asks, "Brad Davis, is he a target?"

Peter says, "Yeah, he's a target!"

And EDITH initiates the strike.

In this scenario, Peter unknowingly discovers a feature and uses it without understanding it.

How to fix this problem?👆

First of all, EDITH is not a stove or a washing machine. It is a complicated machine. Complex things are not easy to use. You need to write an instruction manual to discover and understand this complicated machine.

I don't think Tony Stark ever wrote an instruction manual for any of his creations.😕

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash