Design of Future Things Ch 5

Reference Information

Title: Design of Future Things

Author: Don Norman

Publisher: Basic Books, May 2009

Summary

This chapter discussed the role of automation, explaining that automation is needed to eliminate the dull, the dangerous, and the dirty. However, automation changes the systems already in place, changing the way work is done, changing existing jobs, and changing necessary functions. A lot of the time, it creates more work than before, just allowing the work to be done in a different time frame than previously.

The author discussed smart homes versus homes that make people smart, describing the differences between automation and intelligent augmentation. Autonomy attempts to infer the intentions of people, whereas intelligent augmentation provides useful tools but lets people decide when and where they will use them. The author then emphasized the need to recognize possible failures.

Discussion

I found this chapter very interesting since it described the small differences between automation and augmentation. While most people think that the future holds many automated things, augmentation would be more useful in many situations since it allows user choice. I liked the discussion about the different kinds of houses, and I thought the idea of the interactive message board was pretty cool.  I think that many of the ideas that the author presented should be kept in mind when designing new technologies, such as the need to allow users to make their own choices in some situations.

A picture of the interactive message board. Source: research.microsoft.com