1. Norman Chapter 2 Psychology of Everyday Actions
Jeff Offutt, modified by Paul Amman
SWE 205
Software Usability and Design

2. Making Mistakes When people make mistakes with UIs, they either:
Blame themselves for not paying attention or
Blame themselves for being incapable
They seldom blame the UI !
This is deadly in math, because every subject builds on the previous
Once we fall behind, we think we’re too dumb for math
EVERYbody falls behind sometime
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt

3. Growth Mindset All students fail sometimes Fixed mindset
Some come back stronger and more determined
Some give up
Carol Dweck
Fixed mindset
I believe my intelligence and ability to learn is fixed and cannot change
Growth mindset
I believe that hard work can make me more intelligent and better at learning
Growth habits : Being organized, asking questions, practice, eating well, sleep
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt

4. Emotion Procssing Levels
Visceral: The “Lizard” brain:
Fast and subconscious
Examples: Fight or flight; tension
Behavioral: Learned behavior
Examples: how to type, language, what a mouse does
For designers, every action has an expectation
Reflective: conscious cognition
Examples: (Dis)Satisfaction with a product
Design needs to accommodate all three levels!
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt

5. Seven Stages of Action 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 it ok? Have I accomplished my goal?
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt

6. Seven Principles of Design
Discoverability
Feedback
Conceptual Model
Affordances
Signifiers
Mappings
Constraints
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt

7. Models Vs. Reality A B C
A little physics says that the ball keeps its horizontal motion even after being dropped
Naive guesses are A or B
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt

8. Do NOT assume users are perfect
“Stuff” Happens
If an error is possible, someone will make it
Good UI designers must assume all possible mistakes will happen
Design to minimize the chances of mistakes
Design to minimize the consequences of mistakes
Design to maximize recovery from mistakes
Do NOT assume users are perfect
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt

9. Helping Users Choose Action
Visibility : The user can see the state of the device and how to use it
Good conceptual model : The device works the way the users expect
Good mappings : Users can see relationships between actions and results, controls and effects, and state and appearance
Feedback : The device tells the user what happened at every step
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt

10. When something seems easy to use it was probably hard to design
Summary
When something seems easy to use
it was probably hard to design
18-Apr-19
© Jeff Offutt