1. Part 2: The Psychology of Everyday Actions
Unit 3
The Design of Everyday Things
Part 2: The Psychology of Everyday Actions

2. How People Do Things: The main themes of this section:
How do people do things?
What happens when things go wrong?
How do we detect that they aren’t working, and then how do we know what to do?
An introduction to human psychology and a simple conceptual model of how we select and evaluate our own actions.
The role of understanding (via a conceptual model) and of emotions (pleasure when things go smoothly; frustration when they do not).

3. Gulf of Execution: People try to figure out how something works.
Easily bridged in the presence of appropriate affordances and signifiers, and/or if the person has an accurate conceptual model of or experience with how to operate the device.
Gulf of Evaluation: People try to figure out what state the device is in and whether their actions got them to their goal.
Reflects the amount of effort that the person must exert to interpret the state of the device and determine how well their expectations and intentions have been met.
This gulf is small when a device provides information about its state (feedback) in a form that is easy to get, easy to interpret, and matches the user’s mental model.

4. The Seven-stage Action Cycle: Useful framework for understanding human action and guiding design
Goal (form the goal).
Planning (selecting among the many possible plans of action to follow).
Specify (an action sequence).
Perform (the action sequence).
Perceive (perceiving what happened)
Interpret (trying to make sense of it)
Compare (what happened with what was wanted).
Stages of Execution
Stages of Evaluation
Note: Not all behavior sequences are “conscious” and not all involve planning, but rather are event or opportunity driven.

5. The Seven-stage Action Cycle: Useful guideline for new product development
Much innovation is accomplished through incremental improvements to existing products.
But … what about radical ideas—ones that introduce new product categories to the marketplace?
This often requires a root cause analysis—reconsidering original or existing goals to get to the real goal.
Consider the following simple marketing example:
“People don’t really want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.” But this still expresses an intermediate goal, since the real goal is to hang shelving on a wall. Why not develop methods that don’t require holes? Or, perhaps books that don’t require bookshelves (e-books, etc.)

6. Subconscious and Conscious Systems of Cognition
Fast
Slow
Automatic
Controlled
Multiple resources
Limited resources
Controls skilled behavior
Invoked for novel situations: when learning, when in danger, when things go wrong

7. Human Cognition and Emotion
Emotion interacts with cognition biochemically, bathing the brain with hormones and exerting powerful effects on brain operation.
Tense, threatening conditions
Calm, non-threatening conditions
Releases hormones that bias the brain to focus on relevant parts of the environment and muscles tense in preparation for action.
Releases hormones that relax the muscles and bias the brain toward exploration/creativity. More likely to: (1) notice changes in the environment, (2) be distracted by events, and (3) piece together events/knowledge that seemed unrelated earlier.
Moderately positive emotional state ideal for creative thought, but not for getting things done.
Moderately negative emotional state provides focus; precisely what is needed to maintain attention on a task and finish it.

8. Levels of Processing Visceral level
The most basic level Fast, reflexive and subconscious. Precursor to emotion. Design implications: visceral responses matter (initial attraction/repulsion to a product).
Behavioral level
Involves learned skills. Usually aware of the actions, but unaware of the underlying details.
Design implications: Feedback is critical to managing expectations and good design provides this. Behavioral states are learned—we experience feelings of control when there is good understanding and knowledge of results and frustration and anger when things don’t go as planned, especially when neither the reason nor the possible remedies are known.
Reflective level
Cognitive, deep, and slow. Occurs post-event and gives rise to the highest levels of emotion. Involves evaluating the circumstances, actions, and outcomes, and assessing blame or responsibility. Design implications: Reflective memories are often more important than reality.

9. Causal Attributions and Design
People are innately disposed to look for causes of events, to form explanations and stories.
That is why storytelling is such a persuasive medium.
From our experiences and stories of others, we form generalizations (causal attributions) about the way people behave and things work.
As long as the cause-and-effect pairings make sense, we accept them and use them for understanding future events.
Causal attributions lead to error –especially in the absence of correct external information—when they are based on incorrect conceptual models and information.
Dimensions of causal attributions: positive/negative, temporary/permanent; localized/pervasive.

10. Learned Helplessness
A common outcome when people (and other animals) experience repeated failure at a task.
Pioneered by Martin Seligman who demonstrated that when dogs are exposed to inescapable electric shock (sufficient to cause pain, but not permanent tissue damage) most dogs stop trying to escape and simply “take the shock”.
Believed to be a contributing factor to depression.
Could explain common phobias people develop in response to problems using technology. People frequently blame themselves, especially when few people admit publicly to having similar problems. A type of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Could replace with a Positive Psychology spin; remove failure from our vocabulary and replace it with learning experience.
People should be taught ”to fail often and fail fast.” We often learn more from failures than successes. But we must do so safely!

11. Recommendations to Designers
Don’t blame people when they fail to use products properly. Take use difficulties as signifiers of where the product can be improved.
Eliminate the term human error and instead talk about communication and interaction.
Machines are not people. They can’t communicate and understand the same way we do. Designers have an obligation to ensure the behavior of machines is understandable to the people who interact with them.
Make it possible to correct problems directly from help and guidance messages. Allow people to continue their task. Never make people start over.
Designers should strive to minimize inappropriate actions by using affordances, signifiers, good mapping, and constraints to guide the actions. Consistent, immediate feedback is key.
People are creative and imaginative, not mechanical and precise.

13. The Seven Stages of Action: Basic Checklist of Questions
What do I want to accomplish?
What are the alternative action sequences?
What action can I do now?
How do I do it?
What happened?
What does it mean?
Is this okay? Have I accomplished my goal?
Information to answer Questions of Execution = Feedforward
Information to answer Questions of Evaluation = Feedback

14. Seven Fundamental Principles of Design
Discoverability: Is it possible to determine what actions are possible and the current state of the device?
Feedback: There is full and continuous information about the results of actions and the current state of the product/service. After an action has been executed, it is easy to determine the new state.
Conceptual model: The design projects all information needed to create a conceptual model of the system, leading to understanding and feelings of control. The model enhances both discoverability and evaluation of results.
Affordances: Affordances exist to make the desired actions possible.
Signifiers: Effective use of signifiers ensures discoverability and that the feedback is well communicated and intelligible.
Mappings: The relationship between controls and their actions follows the principles of good mapping, enhanced as much as possible through spatial layout and temporal contiguity.
Constraints: Providing physical, logical, semantic, and cultural constraints, guides actions and eases interpretation.