DET Ch.2

The first thing that I realized when reading this chapter was just how important it is to understand human psychology when designing products. Since we as humans don't even understand all the intricacies of the human brain, this is especially difficult. I found it amusing when he said engineers dismiss visceral responses as irrelevant. I disagree with that statement because I do believe "logical" people at least have the capacity to care about how a product looks and incorporate that into their designs.

I realize how the Seven Stages of the Action Cycle might help break things down, but I don't feel like it is a very useful model because these processes happen in a matter of seconds to skilled individuals. I think breaking down the cognitive process, in a way, over-simplifies and generalizes. There are plenty of instances where I may execute a task, find that it doesn't work, and then jump into planning again instead of "comparing" and defining a new goal.

I appreciate the depth Norman goes into in this chapter, but some models seem irrelevant to me, and he generalizes. In the end, however, I do have a deeper understanding of how the human psyche relates to product design and human-product interaction.