It is not our fault!

Normans' book

Do you know that feeling that you have no clue how a certain machine works? And how many times did you try to open a door by pushing, while you had to pull to open it? How many times have you bought an Ikea design and spent hours to build it? It gives you a feeling of incompetence, and we always blame ourselves. But I have got good news. It is not our fault! It is the fault of the door, the machine, and the Ikea design. Actually, it is the fault of the designer.

That was the message of one of my first lectures of User-interface design. Our lecturer gave us a considerable number of good and recognizable examples. What a relief! Now I have good arguments if my colleagues of the opposite sex laugh at me while I am having problems with the printer. They cannot say things like “You should have been blonde” anymore. No, it is not my fault. (The fact that I am not blonde is also the fault of someone else. Blame my parents).

By the way, for this course we have to read the book of Norman ‘The design of everyday things’. It is a nice book, and as a starter in the world of communication experts it gives you the right way of thinking. I think it is a ‘must read’ for designers, but I can recommend the book to everyone. It is not a study book, it is just funny to read and it will open a whole new world.  

This was just a good advice, now back to the lecture. It was good news, but like the football legend Johan Cruijf said “every advantage has a disadvantage”, and he is right. While I was listening to our lecturer I was wondering if the designer adapts his design to the users how simple sometimes a design will be. Would not that be boring? Besides, it is nice to see other people trying to understand a machine or to see them walking against a door, because they thought they had to push to open the door. It is good for the development of a human being to think before they use some machines. And if every design is so simple that everyone will understand it, too many jobs will disappear, including the one of my favorite ‘printer- help- guy’.

And girls… If we do not understand a technical machine remember that is not our fault, but the fault of the machine which was probably designed by a man.