BOM - The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman - The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to the Real Estate Espresso podcast, your morning
shot of what's new in the world of real estate investing.
I'm your host, Victor Minash. Happy 1st of the month.
On the first day of each month, we review the book of the month.
Now, in order to be considered worthy of book of the month, the
book has to meet a very simple criteria.
It has to be impactful enough that it will either change your
life or your perspective on the world.

(00:22):
Now whether it does or not, of course, is entirely up to you.
If you consume it as a piece of entertainment, you're missing
the point. But if you internalize its
messages, you have a realistic shot at lasting growth.
Our book this month is absolutely worthy of Book of the
month. The book is called The Design of
Everyday Things by Don Norman. Now, if you've been listening to
me for a while, you know that I come from an engineering product

(00:42):
design background. I view the world through the
lens of product design, where you're designing a very specific
product for a specific customer.So if you want to buy a rental
apartment building and decide you're going to lease it out to
tenants, this is still a productdesigned with a very specific
customer in mind. It is human centered design and
this book is all about human centered design.

(01:05):
So Don Norman's book, The Designof Everyday Things is not merely
a book about industrial design, it's a profound philosophical
treatise on the relationship between humans and the objects
that populate the world. It was first written back in the
1980s and it was revised again in 2013.
The book score message remains as relevant today as was 3
decades ago when it was written.Now Norman argues that the fault

(01:28):
of our everyday struggles with technology, the fumbling with
confusing remote controls and poor design, lies not with the
user, but the designer. This simple but very
revolutionary premise forms the the backbone of the book.
It's become a central reading for anyone involved in product
design and user experience, understanding the human to
computer or the human to productinteraction.

(01:49):
It doesn't matter whether the product is a computer or an
apartment, you're still interacting with it in some way.
So the core argument is that theuser is not to blame.
The concept of user centered design is a philosophy that
insists products need to be designed around the needs of
people, not the other way around.
He dismantles the common misconception that if a user

(02:10):
struggles with the device, they're somehow inept or
unintelligent. Steady places the burden of
responsibility on the shoulders of the designer.
A well designed object should beintuitive and self-explanatory.
Doesn't require a complex instruction manual.
Because the functionality is made obvious through its
physical form, you can figure out how to interact with it.
You shouldn't need to read the instructions to figure out how

(02:30):
to enter the parking garage. That reframing of the problem is
the book's central most impactful contribution.
There's a number of key conceptsin the book.
There's the language of design. The author uses a vocabulary
that has since become the standard in the design world.
Most famous of these are the word affordances and signifiers.
Affordances are the potential actions that an object allows.

(02:53):
A button, for example, affords pressing, a chair affords
sitting. Norman clarifies that while an
affordance is a property of the object, a signifier is a signal
or a clue that communicates thataffordance.
So, for example, a Button's raised shape and color are
signifiers that it can in fact be pressed.
The handle on a door is a signifier for pulling, whereas a

(03:13):
flat plate is a signifier for pushing.
The key insight is that good design makes signifiers obvious
and unambiguous, so the user instinctively knows what to do
without needing to think about it.
The classic example is the norm and door a door with a handle
that suggests pulling even though it should be pushed.
That causes confusion and frustration.
Another crucial concept is mapping, which refers to the

(03:35):
relationship between control andeffect.
The best mapping is natural and intuitive.
For example, the controls for a car's electric windows are well
mapped when the switch at the front left is located in the
front left of the control panel,and so on.
Poor mapping would be a stove with a confusing arrangement of
burners and knobs, forcing the user to mentally map each knob
to its corresponding burner. The author uses simple examples

(03:58):
to highlight that universal truth.
When the relationship between action and result is clear and
logical, product feels seamless and easy to use.
And when it's not, it feels cumbersome and awkward and
counterintuitive. So there's six fundamental
principles of the core of the book.
We've talked about a few already.
We've talked about affordances. We've talked about signifiers.
We've talked about mapping. Then we get the feedback.
This is providing immediate and clear information about the

(04:19):
result of an action, a blinking light, a sound, a vibration
ulcer to inform the user that their action has in fact taken
place. Then there's conceptual models.
Design objects are easy to understand.
A good conceptual model allows the user to form a simple metal
picture of how the device works.It helps them predict what's
going to happen next. And then the last concept is the

(04:41):
concept of constraints. These are where the physical or
logical limitations to guide theuser towards a correct action.
For example, a USB plug is constrained by its shape.
It can only go in one way, although it might be argued that
that in fact can be improved upon.
So why this book matters is thatit's not just a technical guide,
it's really more of a call to action to change our perspective

(05:02):
on the world. So that when we're thinking
about delivering a product to the end user, whether it's a
rental apartment or anything else, we're thinking it through
from a storyboard, from a functional perspective so that
we understand how the human interacts with it.
The book is free of technical jargon, apart from a few that
I've mentioned here just now, But in the end, you're going to
find yourself noticing small design triumphs and failures

(05:25):
throughout the world that you interact with on a daily basis.
This work is a powerful reminderthat design is not just about
aesthetics. It's not just about making life
easier or simpler. It's about that seamless
integration between the way people think naturally and
intuitively and the use of thoseparticular products.
As you think about that, go and get a copy of The Design of

(05:45):
Everything Things by Don Norman and have an awesome rest of your
day. They'll make some great things
happen. We'll talk to you again
tomorrow.

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BOM - The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

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