The Masochist’s Coffeepot

Have you ever picked up the oddest-looking thing, wondered in heaven’s name what it was for, who designed it and why? Ever stood in the shower battling it out with the hot/cold faucet controls imploring Roman bath gods and then you either get scalded or receive an Arctic splash and you hear your roommate outside checking "You okay?" cause he hears you screaming some words unprintable here? Or in a museum where you feel like an idiot because you do not know what to do with the lever or button before you and it is supposed to be an interactive museum. And oh, those do-it-yourself furniture kits that seem to have also knocked down the English language with it in its assembly instructions, leaving you to rise to the task of resurrecting both the furniture and the English language.

Did you know that there is a science in the design of everyday things? It has to do partly with the hard sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology, merged with "cognitive" science which is the study of how we humans recognize things in the world and make use of this information with knowledge we also have in our heads. Dr. Donald A. Norman, a cognitive scientist and a computer science professor in Northwestern University, wrote a book in 1996 entitled "The Psychology of Everyday Things" which has been updated and now called "The Design of Everyday Things" (Basic Books. NY, 2002). The book cover speaks for itself. It has a picture of a red coffeepot that has the handle and the spout on the same side (read that again and now, imagine pouring coffee). Called The Masochist’s Coffeepot, it is featured in the French artist Jacques Carelman’s Catalogue d’objets Introuvables (Catalogue of Unfindable Things, 1969-76-80, Paris). The Norman book exploits the frustrations of users of everyday things such as hotel doors, faucets, car controls, television, remote controls, telephones, etc., and points out that not being able to work out some designs of these contraptions do not necessarily mean you are a technology or mechanical idiot because it could also be true that those things were poorly designed.

Norman says there are several factors that are involved in being able to work some everyday things successfully. These are: conceptual model, visibility, constraints, mapping and feedback. Conceptual model just means that we humans share a general picture of something in order for it to work well. For instance, an oven with a door you open from the top like a car hood certainly will not work and we do not have to wait till one makes one to know that. Visibility means that the parts that matter should be within the sight of the user so that the user will have a general picture of cause and effect. For example, a revolving door where you can see a pivotal center on which all the glass doors are hinged so that you know that if the doors stop revolving, something is stuck where it matters. Mapping simply means that we lay out in our heads the relationship between the controls, the movement and their effect in the world. An example would be a four-burner stove and knowing which control corresponds to which burner. This reminds me of a project we had in college, when we were required to pick out an invention in the patents’ office and actually devise a marketing plan for it. For some reason, unclear even to this date almost 20 years later, the invention we picked out was a single burner stove that turned into a flat-iron (yes, you read right). It was attached to a gas tank via a hose. It is the most unyielding thing you can imagine since what is the thing that a stove and a flat iron share, except for heat which they share with other things humans have invented since they discovered fire? Imagine doing a rush ironing job on a shirt because your mother needs the iron to cook breakfast? We were very curious then to meet the inventor simply to ask him: "What were you thinking?" But as it turned out, he had long fled the country, economically defeated by the consequences of poor design. The last factor is feedback. It brings out the need for the user to always be able to know what is going on as she controls and manipulates the contraption.

Norman also gives some tips on what designers should consider before putting everyday things out to the world for everyday users. They have to do with the five factors he cited above and added that the designer should also take into account social and cultural constraints. This refers to certain things that the user, embraced within her/his culture, may not be able to do, given a certain contraption. My own example would be the location of ATMs that should be able to take into account the need for security in allowing space for the user and those waiting in line. In some cultures, this space may have to be relatively bigger than in some cultures where being kept waiting close together is not really a big issue in terms of comfort and security. He also mentions that a designer should be able to design for error and also not to make it too costly in energy and money for the user to correct her/his actions since humans do make route mistakes. Norman even cites a couple of psychological jargon for certain types of human errors. Funny how big academic words sometimes make some words like "mistakes" seem something we are not responsible for, as if we are just here to carry our brains around. For instance, "associative error" which is when you mistake something of similar configuration with another thing. This calls to mind a very nice secretary I knew who always got rattled in the morning when her boss was cranky that when the phone rang, instead of picking it up, picked up her mug and said "hello" to it just because the same shape (handle) and motion were required by both tasks. The other kind of error I found curious Norman calls "loss of activation error" which really just means you forget things and you try to trace your steps literally or mentally hoping you will recover them.

Norman encourages users to question bad design and even to boycott it. I had an episode in a paint store where while I was waiting for the fellow to mix my desired shade, noticed why some paint cans were paint-labeled downside up. I asked him if there was anything in the property of paint that required it to be stored that way. But I did not think so since some were labeled just right. He never could answer me and, in fact, he said I was the first person who ever asked and I ended up inspecting carts full of that stuff as he, intrigued by my question, brought them out. But for those who design things well, I agree with Norman that we should give them "mental prizes" for having been mindful in detail of the needs of the countless unnamed who will use these everyday things. I think that is really delightful stuff deserving our gratitude. We should be able to walk around street corners, stores, houses, museums, machines, paying attention to good design we usually take for granted.

So designers of everyday things, please remember us the users before you hammer that edge, color that red, hide that control, flatten out that surface and test if they really help the user in making her work everyday things in the world. We are all users of everyday things and we do all have to sleep at night carrying our unique "not-everyday" personal baggage and we all have to get up in the morning and fall in love with the world again. I would not want my morning efforts thwarted by simple everyday things such as a coffeepot that has no other choice but to spill its contents on me or a handkerchief sunny-side up from that stove-cum-flat-iron.

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