Objects and their Designers: Norman & Schön

Tera Marie Green IAT 832

Opening thoughts

- Norman: organic…error leads to self blame.

- Schön: scientific rigor…trial and error lead to new insight

- It’s always the designer’s fault.

Objects vs. Their designers

Norman’s

objects

Schon’s

designer

Affordances Perceived and actual properties of the object

Technical rationality: scientific theory & technique

Mappings Object mapping between manipulations and their consequences

Mapping unstable categories onto features of the situation

Feedback Object sending back info about action taken

Restructuring a problem;Reflection-in-action

Norman’s objects

- Well designed objects are easy to interpret and understand.

Norman’s objects

- Well designed objects are easy to interpret and understand.

- Natural mapping…leads to immediate understanding.

Norman’s objects

- Well designed objects are easy to interpret and understand.

- Natural mapping…leads to immediate understanding.

- Still, if the task appears simple or trivial, then people blame themselves [when it doesn’t work.]

Schön’s designer

- You should begin with a discipline, even if it is arbitrary. p93

Schön’s designer

- You should begin with a discipline, even if it is arbitrary. P93

- Skillful action often reveals a “knowing more than we can say. P51