DesignOfEverydayThings - Discoverability and Understanding

• The most important characteristics of good design: Discover-ability and Understanding
• Discover-ability
• Figure out what actions are possible
• Where and how to perform them
• Understanding
• What does it all mean?
• How is the product supposed to be used?
• What do all the different controllers and settings mean?
• Ex. Doors: Need signals to indicate naturally where to push. Ex. Vertical plate on a side to be pushed
  
• We accept complex device needs aid of manual, but it should be unnecessary for simple things
• Faced with array of controls and displays, we simply memorize one or two settings to fulfill requirement
• When a device with complex settings let user unable to remember, then whole purpose of design was lost