Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things frequently pops up on lists of “must read” design books, but I’ve somehow managed to avoid reading it until now. A human without a cognitive system is dysfunctional.Book Review: The Design of Everyday Thingsĭonald A. A human without a working emotional system has difficulty making choices. Cognition provides understanding: emotion provides value judgments. It is the emotional system that determines whether a situation is safe or threatening, whether something that is happening is good or bad, desirable or not. Cognition attempts to make sense of the world: emotion assigns value. In fact, the emotional system is a powerful information processing system that works in tandem with cognition. That is why much of language is based on physical metaphors, why the body and its interaction with the environment are essential components of human thought. The brain is structured to act upon the world, and every action carries with it expectations, and these expectations drive emotions. Cognitive thoughts lead to emotions: emotions drive cognitive thoughts.
“Cognition and emotion cannot be separated. Pinning the blame on the person may be a comfortable way to proceed, but why was the system ever designed so that a single act by a single person could cause calamity? Worse, blaming the person without fixing the root, underlying cause does not fix the problem: the same error is likely to be repeated by someone else.” System design should take this into account. Humans err continually it is an intrinsic part of our nature. But in my experience, human error usually is a result of poor design: it should be called system error. More and more often the blame is attributed to “human error.” The person involved can be fined, punished, or fired. When major accidents occur, official courts of inquiry are set up to assess the blame. Unfortunately, the idea that a person is at fault is imbedded in the legal system. That’s why we blame others and even ourselves.
“The idea that a person is at fault when something goes wrong is deeply entrenched in society.
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