Comm / INFO 2450

Communication and Technology

Professor

Drew Margolin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6A331B1oq8

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2450 News

Chapter 1 – The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

• everyday objects filled with design issues

• we interact with them deeply, unconsciously, constantly

• typically people blame themselves

• good design is rare but achievable

Everyday-ness

Chapter 1 – The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

Affordances

Visibility

Mappings

Feedback

Conceptual Models

High-Level Principles

Everyday-ness

Conceptual Models

People will make sense out of any information you give them

This is bad, because they jump to all kinds of crazy conclusions

But this is also good, because it means they can be easily trained to

understand new technology with the right affordances and signifiers

as cues

Chapter 1 – The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

High-Level Principles

Everyday-ness

Conceptual Models

Design Model

User Model

System Image

Design Models and User Models

Do they work in exactly the same way?

Are there clues to how they are different?

Design Models and User Models

Do they work in exactly the same way?

Are there clues to how they are different?

Does this thing get involved?

TweetReport

Not much about the gulfs!

TweetReport

Attributions – Unavoidable yet Erroneous

elee2450 Even though I'm an engineer, sometimes I find myself using 'folk

theories' to explain my observations

Julisilva2450 We're taught that causation isn't correlation but I often find

myself assigning causes to events as a means of explanation.

TweetReport

Whose fault is it, really?

mmfj2450 I think our society encourages the notion that users (not the

device/designer) are to blame for any errors with technology.

carmichael2450 Maybe it isn't my fault that I can't always use motion sensor

faucets correctly... #ChapterTwo #SystemErrorNotHumanError

mmeehan2450 Thanks to Norman, I no longer have to feel incompetent

when I can't figure out how to use a product -- or do math?

lwidom2450 If only 1 in a billion people has a 'design-based problem' why

can't we call it 'human error?' Norman deflects too much blame.

• We are explanatory creatures

• Blame is social

• Stages of Action

Chapter 2 – The Psychology of Everyday Things

Explain this!

We’re explanatory creatures

• “It’s a virus”

• “It’s my hard drive”

• “It’s a Thursday!”

Chapter 2 – The Psychology of Everyday Things

Attribution:

a mental explanation for why

something occurred

• May be conscious or

unconscious

• Articulated or tacit

• Based on mental models and

naïve theories

Chapter 2 – The Psychology of Everyday Things

bzhou2450: Astrology; good luck charms; rituals to do better in competition.

Superstition is a prime exle of cause-seeking at work.

Mental Models

• Built from:

– limited experience

– common knowledge

• Favor temporal proximity in assigning causality

• Particularly poor for novel situations

Chapter 2 – The Psychology of Everyday Things

What’s the Explanation?

My Experience

1. On vacation, phone won’t re-charge

to more than 53% overnight

2. Battery manager says “Twitter” is

consuming 57% of my power

4. [couple of hours later] … Phone still

isn’t charging well

5. Battery manager still says “Twitter” is

consuming a lot of my power

7. Next day: Phone still isn’t re-charging

Last Year’s Case of the Dying Battery

Chapter 2 – The Psychology of Everyday Things

My Attributions / Actions

3. I go to Twitter and shut it off (Twitter app has been giving me problems anyway)

6. I conclude: Twitter is “broken”!

Aggressively shut it down in every

way possible

Any guesses?

Personal example: This Year’s Case of the Dying Battery

Chapter 2 – The Psychology of Everyday Things

My Experience

1. Let phone run down to low power

2. It’s happening faster and faster

4. [couple of hours later] … Phone still

isn’t charging well

5. Website tells me you have to restart

phone every so often because

Google “runs processes” or

something

7. It works!

My Attributions / Actions

3. I download some new battery mgr.

Tells me %’s – so what?

4. Finally search – “Android battery

losing charge”(

6. I do it.

Chapter 1 – The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

So whose fault is it?

Blame is comprised of two elements:

The attribution of a physical cause

– Based on mental model of the

technology

Role responsibility

– Based on normative expectations for

competence and appropriate behavior

The Blame Game

QWang2450 Older people tend to blame themselves more when they encounter

technical difficulties. Younger people like blaming designs.

“Now I know what happened”

“Who was supposed to know”

I should know They should know

Don’t drop phone in toilet

to update new phone w/

contact phone #’s from old

don’t click on weird links/attachments

to identify “attachments” for people

To type in / not type in a password over the web?

The Blame Game

• Blame is a normative

interpretation

• No technically “right”

place to blame

The Blame Game

• Can be renegotiated

through cultural change

The Blame Game

• Shifts in blame…

The Blame Game

jswannie2450: I wish online ordering offered more immediate feedback so

that I don't press 'place order' twice (and get charged twice)

User

He means, my whole

mental model of the

app is shattered

Google Play for gflash

BREAKOUT

Your friend’s e-mail got hacked

What’s a possible cause?

Who is responsible?

-- What would make it the designer’s fault?

-- What would make it your friend’s fault?

-- Is your friend helpless?

-- Do they have a “right” to be?

5 minutes – include names on report