Leopard

I think that the new Mac OS Leopard is a great example of good design. While there are hardly any problems or unintuitive actions in Tiger, Leopard has added many new features without taking away from the simplicity of use that Mac users have come to expect. This is an important aspect of design, the ease of use vs. the amount of features balance. If things are full of features, but the features are hard to access or counterintuitive to operate, why should they be included? The best designed products have the necessary features while being easy to operate.

Other Blogs

Ben's blog- I really liked the passage that he quoted from the site. It made perfect sense, but I had never seen it expressed in those words before. That is an idea that almost everyone has regarding design.

Naufal's Blog- I thought that it was interesting that the design he chose was that of a toy. Almost everything that we discuss in class has more of a grown-up nature to it, such as phones or computers, but design applies to everything, including toys.

What I found Interesting on the Sites and How They Related

Ben's Site- The Value Pyramid graphic. I thought that it did a good job of visualizing the features that are present in well designed products and also the processes that occur in successful companies. This site did a good job of expressing parts of the design process, which, in a way, are very similar to the steps of the writing process.

Naufal's Site- I liked the idea of the site in general, with the examples of many different types of bad design and how to fix them. Obviously this site relates to what we have talked about in class because each of these products was poorly designed; they have faults in terms of mapping, visibility or perhaps both of them.

Naufal's Blog

Ben's Blog

Design Article

For the article assignment, I found a blog post about the design of a new Dell PC. It was about how the Dell, while obviously still a PC, was implementing better design elements and was making steps towards displaying Apple-esque design.

"Is Dell going to suddenly transform into Apple? No. But it has more of a design clue than the company did a year ago. For now, that counts as progress."

The blog was talking about the improvement of design and the shift towards more human-friendly design of the computer. This has several relevancies to our class, including mapping, etc. I also thought it was relevant because we talk about Apple all the time.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6722

Design Passage

"For most of us, the pain starts when we suddenly turn the page and say, "Uh... what did I just miss? How the hell did they get THERE? My dialog box looks nothing like that...""

I chose this post not only because I found it somewhat humorous, but because I thought that it fit perfectly with an idea from Norman's book. I have found myself in this situation before, often times with the installation of software on Windows. This quote pertains directly to the idea of conceptual models. This problem arises when the writer of the manual and the user of the product are on different levels in terms of experience using the product.

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/09/how_to_get_user.html

Good Design

I think that one of the best designs that I have encountered is that of my computer. I have a first generation MacBook Pro, and I think it is one of the best-designed products available. it seems as though every function is thought out and planned. The power cord is magnetic, so that if it is pulled, it simply pops out, preventing the computer from being damaged. The keys on the keyboard are backlit, so they can be seen in the dark with ease. However, they are light sensitive and adjust themselves accordingly. On the trackpad, one finger operates it normally, but using two fingers simultaneously allows for scrolling. The clasp for the lid is all inside of the computer, and only when it is nearly closed do magnets bring out the hooks for the lid. The software and operation of the computer is all very intuitive.

Difficult Phone

This post is about poorly designed cell phones. I have used many of them; many more cell phones out there are poorly designed than well designed. I used to have a terribly designed phone. It had one of the smallest keypads that I have ever used, with extra space along the sides of the keypad. If there is going to be extra space, why not take advantage of it? Also, the buttons were placed in bad, unintuitive locations (such as the rocker for the volume being on the top of the phone). I can't remember the exact model number of the phone, but I can describe another phone that is poorly designed. The first version of the LG Chocolate was an ergonomic nightmare. The call button was on the front of the phone, but the end button was on the side. The directional buttons were arranged in a circle, with a silver circle surrounding them, but they only operated by being pushed. The natural reaction is to try spinning the wheel as you would on an iPod, but that was not the case. I could go on for hours about this phone but I don't have hours. I'll post a link for it later for any of those that don't know which phone I'm talking about.

Egg Drop

For the egg drop project, I was partners with Naufal. We originally were very ambitious with the design of our box, wanting to incorporate everything from multiple springs to peanut butter. However, we also didn't want to spend money on the project, so our ideas were scaled down. We noticed the empty Xbox 360 box in his dorm, and that became the inspiration for our outer shell. We needed something soft to protect the egg on the inside of the box, so we came up with socks and towels, which seemed sufficient.
After constructing the box, we put the egg inside and decided we should test it before the actual event. We figured that we would be dropping it from a high place, so the logical test was me holding it as high as I could and then dropping it. This seemed like an easy test, but our project ended up working the entire time... and is still working on the second floor balcony.