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Don Norman’s “The Design of Everyday Things” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyd

by riwsky 6y ago

Don Norman’s “The Design of Everyday Things” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Thing...). Yes, API design has its own gotchas and specific practices—but some of the best (and worst) APIs I’ve ever interacted with were good (or bad) for the same reasons any kind of design can be good ( or bad): affordances, feedback, coherent conceptual models, and so on.

dognotdog 6y ago
I came to say exactly the same thing! An API should guide a user to form a mental model that is consistent with the actual inner workings to avoid frustration and making errors (the importance of this cannot be overstated for critical functionality like authentication/authorization).
- tootie 6y ago
  Isn't that the opposite of the lesson to learn? Design should be sending the correct outward signals and function the way users will expect. Users should not need to understand the inner workings.
  - rahimnathwani 6y ago
    Like it or not, users develop a mental model. The fridge example in the book shows how hiding too much of the inner workings can make your system less intuitive to use.
    - CharlesW 6y ago
      > Like it or not, users develop a mental model. Agree 100%, but good APIs aren't just a raw interface to a snapshot of how a system happens to be implemented at the time the API was defined.
      - rahimnathwani 6y ago
        Agree 100%
  - eska 6y ago
    The lesson from the book is that users will always form a mental model of how the machine works. That's fine even if it's wrong, as long as it works. But when things don't work and users have faulty assumptions about what may be the problem, it becomes hell.
  - dognotdog 6y ago
    I think that's the crux of good design :) It doesn't mean to unnecessarily expose implementation details, but I take it to be the other way around: implement things in a way that things work consistently without having to know the nuts and bolts.
spectramax 6y ago
Yep, I second this. Don Norman really and truly understood the user in the deepest way. It’s hard to find people like him who put their entire consciousness in the shoes of the user, simulate what the user goes through when interacting with the world and provide insights about how, we the designers, on the opposite aisle think about design as not some aesthetic shit but as a tool to solve problems. Design and designers, vast majority of them are chasing aesthetics and trends. Just go on Behance to see it for yourself.
- davidivadavid 6y ago
  That's about as accurate a judgment on designers as calling programmers "code monkeys." Follow a couple designers on Twitter for a few weeks and you're almost guaranteed to see someone quote Steve Jobs saying "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." All designers know that.
  - eska 6y ago
    To be fair, most programmers are code monkeys. But that's true for most people in any profession. It's not a fair comparison to compare the average worker to workers of excellence.

by riwsky 6y ago

dognotdog 6y ago

I came to say exactly the same thing! An API should guide a user to form a mental model that is consistent with the actual inner workings to avoid frustration and making errors (the importance of this cannot be overstated for critical functionality like authentication/authorization).

tootie 6y ago
Isn't that the opposite of the lesson to learn? Design should be sending the correct outward signals and function the way users will expect. Users should not need to understand the inner workings.
- rahimnathwani 6y ago
  Like it or not, users develop a mental model. The fridge example in the book shows how hiding too much of the inner workings can make your system less intuitive to use.
  - CharlesW 6y ago
    > Like it or not, users develop a mental model. Agree 100%, but good APIs aren't just a raw interface to a snapshot of how a system happens to be implemented at the time the API was defined.
    - rahimnathwani 6y ago
      Agree 100%
- eska 6y ago
  The lesson from the book is that users will always form a mental model of how the machine works. That's fine even if it's wrong, as long as it works. But when things don't work and users have faulty assumptions about what may be the problem, it becomes hell.
- dognotdog 6y ago
  I think that's the crux of good design :) It doesn't mean to unnecessarily expose implementation details, but I take it to be the other way around: implement things in a way that things work consistently without having to know the nuts and bolts.

spectramax 6y ago

Yep, I second this. Don Norman really and truly understood the user in the deepest way. It’s hard to find people like him who put their entire consciousness in the shoes of the user, simulate what the user goes through when interacting with the world and provide insights about how, we the designers, on the opposite aisle think about design as not some aesthetic shit but as a tool to solve problems. Design and designers, vast majority of them are chasing aesthetics and trends. Just go on Behance to see it for yourself.

davidivadavid 6y ago
That's about as accurate a judgment on designers as calling programmers "code monkeys." Follow a couple designers on Twitter for a few weeks and you're almost guaranteed to see someone quote Steve Jobs saying "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." All designers know that.
- eska 6y ago
  To be fair, most programmers are code monkeys. But that's true for most people in any profession. It's not a fair comparison to compare the average worker to workers of excellence.