Spencer's: I think this is an interesting aspect of design. We talk about apple almost everyday in our class. It is hard not to though when it comes to talking about good design. Apple has made a great simple product that is easy to use. Since the Leopard boasts new features, but remains an easy to use apple product. I might check out the Leopard's specks to see if I would purchase it.

Chris': I have the same feelings when it comes toward shopping. I am drawn in my savy design or cool features, but I usually never think about the layout and simplicity of the product. That is why I sometimes have trouble using new gadgets that I buy. If I were to look at the simplicty of the object rather than the cool layout, I would be able to use the products to their fullest extent.

Alex's: Ergonomics are a very important aspect of design. As I stated above, I sometimes do have problem overlooking simplicity for a good look. If I like the look of something, that product is going to stick in my mind. If something feels right in your hand, or is very aesthetically pleasing. While both are essential to design, I find myself struggling to to meet at a middle point. It's hard to picture a perfect product, that looks great but works incredibly well. Enter Apple. The Ipod is our standout product in this category of greatness. The perfect fit, yet the simplest to use. The Ipod is not confusing. The Ipod is not awkward.

When I'm sitting in my dorm room I look around at some of things in here, and I see how poorly designed they are. My remote control has realy bad mapping. All the buttons are the same size, which makes it hard to push the correct one if you are fumbling around with it in the dark. Also, the labeling of the buttons is extremely difficult to use. All the numbers are printed really small below the buttons except the ones at the very top of the remote. So when I turn it on it is labeled above the button, but when I put in the channel number it is labeled below the button. I am constantly putting in the wrong channel which gets frustrating. Another thing that has poor design is the microwave in my room. I got it before I went to college, and I had never used it before. The first time I went to use it, I found that there is no time cook button. I discovered that you just input the time, which seems pretty obvious but I am used to there being a time cook button. Another problem is when you are putting in the power level. On microwaves that I have used, you usually put 10 in for high. This microwave is not like that, you have to push the 0 button. This is very illogical because you would think that 0 means no power. These are few things that having very bad mapping. I like the fact that I can analyze many objects and their design. I think about why it is a good product or why it is a bad one.

The first blog I looked at was Spencer's blog.
This is what I found:
1. He talked about the article which seemed interesting. The article talked about how Dell was re-working their PC to be more apple-like.
2. That this new pc will be very user friendly.
3. User friendliness is something that is always discussed in our class. We have talked about how it is essential to the design process. We have talked about how consumers look for user friendliness.

Spencer's Blog

The second blog I looked at was Alex's blog.
This is what I found:
1. I liked how it said when a product works so well we don't reallly notice it. I think that is true. When you are using a great product you don't really think about how great it is. You only really notice when you are using an object that is hurting your progress.
2. I liked the article because it listed off five ideas that good design is built upon. It has similarities and contrasts to Norman's book.
3. I thought that this website related very closely to our class. Everyday we talk about good design. How good design effects everything about the product.

Alex's Blog

I found this passage:
with a study saying 67 percent of people don't play the Wii, how important are sales? To Nintendo, hardware sales mean almost everything -- the more people buy, the higher its revenue rises, the better it looks to shareholders.

But what some don't realize is Nintendo is reliant upon software developers too. With licensing fees on the rise, Nintendo stands to make quite a bit of money if it can coax developers to make games for the console. But when just 33 percent actually use the console, what's the impetus for developers to spend the limited amount of capital on the Wii?

I think this relates to a discussion that we have had before. I think that it is trying to say that Nintendo just wants to bring in new customers, and sell a lot of the Wii gaming console. But after you buy it, you don't really use it anymore. And the company stops caring about you since you already bought the console. The company isnt willing to make it more user friendly, or to make games that people will fully enjoy.


LINK

A passage that I thought was interesting:

If you can keep the reader/learner/user in a flow state--where the rest of the world drops away--they'll love you. Seriously. And they'll want their friends and family to love you as much as they do. The flow experience is one of the most enjoyable and enriching times in most people's lives, and we all have the chance to help give our users just a little more of this.

Kathy Sierra's Blog

I think this relates to design, because design needs to flow well. A product has to be easy to use and to understand. If you have a product like that, many people will enjoy using your product.

A product that I think is designed very well is my xbox 360. It is a revolutionary game playing system. It has a sleek desgin and is very easy to use. All I have to do is push a button and it turns on the console, or I can do that on my controller for the system. I can open the slot and the game automatically starts working. It has a really good user interface. I can totally customize my gamer profile. Since I added live, which is an extra so you can play your games online with many different people all over the world, I automatically get updates for every game that I play. I can track my stats for my games and compare that to people in other games. It took sometime to learn how to use the games, but after I learned all that it became incredibly simple. I have never had to call customer service or read the manual.

Recently my dad decided that we needed to redo a bathroom in our house. He wanted to make everything look good including the new shower. This is the product that gave me problems. I think it has poor design for several reasons. Usually there is a place where you could operate the drain if you wanted to take a bath or a shower. This shower does not have one. Instead there is a huge nut that is rotated on the bottom of the shower depending on what you want. This is inconvenient because it is hard to put it on the right setting especially if you have already started running the water. Also it is a hazard that you might trip over a few times. Another thing is the handle that turns the shower on and also adjusts the temperature of the water. Now the designer went for simplicity since there is only one handle, but it is confusing on which way to turn for which desired result. If you turn it clockwise or counterclockwise you get the water turned on. It is hard though to find the right temperature when there are two possible options for turning the handle. The last thing is what gave me the most trouble. Usually in a shower there is some where to turn on the shower head that is obviously visible. This shower is an exception to that. I could not find that switch the first time I used it and I had to go ask my dad. He told me to start the shower you need to pull down on on a little switch that is underneath where the water comes out if I was taking a bath. This is probably the last place I would've checked because it doesn't make sense to me that the designer would hide the switch like that.

Right from the start Srikar and I knew that we needed a parachute for our egg. We thought that foam would also be a good idea to give the egg some padding. When I went to Srikar's room I brought the egg in a cup. We figured that we should leave the egg in the cup and still cover the egg in foam. We built teh parachute from a trash bag and some fishing line. It took me a bit of time to find some fishing line, but it was essential to the task. We made the parachute by cutting holes in the bag and also by cutting holes in the cup and tying it with fishing line. The day of the test I was kind of nervous that our container wouldn't work, but I remained hopeful. I was really excited when I saw that our parachute had worked very well. I really liked this project a lot.