Design of Everyday Things Excerpt - Chapter 2 The Psychology of Everyday Actions

Bridge of Evaluation closes the Gulf of Evaluation while Bridge of Execution closes the Gulf of Execution. Gulfs pose as opportunities for new product enhancements.

7 stages of action cycle:

1. Goal - form the goal (What do I want to accomplish?） 
2. Plan - the action (What are alternatives?）- feedforward
3. Specify - an action sequence (What can I do?） - feedforward
4. Perform - the action sequence (How do I do it?） - feedforward
5. Perceive - the state of the world (What happened?）- feedback
6. Interpret - the perception (What does it mean?）- feedback
7. Compare - the outcome with the goal (Is this okay?）- feedback

There may be numerous sequences, multiple feedback loops, and many subgoals. And the whole process may last for hours, days, months or years. Action cycle is goal-driven behavior. For many daily tasks, they are opportunistic rather than planned.

Use Root Cause Analysis to find the hierarchy of goals. For example, satisfy hunger, eat, cook, read cooking book, turn on light. Root Cause Analysis can be conducted by asking 5 Whys until the fundamental cause of the activity is reached.(p.42)

Theodore Levitt at Harvard said: "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!" Do not confuse the intermediate goal with real goal.

3 Levels of Processing

1. Visceral level 

The most basic level Fast, automatic, and subconscious. Precursor to emotion. Design implications: visceral responses matter (initial attraction/repulsion to a product) the style matters: appearance, etc, drive the visceral responses.  Great designers use their aesthetic sensibilities to drive these visceral responses,

2. Behavioral level 

Home of learned skills, and home of interaction. It is about expectations. Usually aware of the actions, but unaware of the underlying details. Design implications: Feedback is critical to managing expectations and good design provides this. Behavioral states are learned—we experience feelings of control when there is good understanding and knowledge of results and frustration and anger when things don’t go as planned, especially when neither the reason nor the possible remedies are known. 

(Visceral and Behavioral are subconscious  and home of basic emotions)

3. Reflective level 

Cognitive, deep, and slow. Occurs post-event and gives rise to the highest levels of emotion. Involves evaluating the circumstances, actions, and outcomes, and assessing blame or responsibility. Design implications: Reflective memories are often more important than reality.

Well-design devices can induce pride and enjoyment, a feeling of being in control and pleasure - possibly even love and attachment.(p.55) One important emotional state is the complete immersion into an activity, which Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi labeled "flow".

Causal Attributions and Design

• People are innately disposed to look for causes of events, to form explanations and stories. Conceptual Model is a story made by people. 
• That is why storytelling is such a persuasive medium. 
• From our experiences and stories of others, we form generalizations (causal attributions) about the way people behave and things work. 
• As long as the cause-and-effect pairings make sense, we accept them and use them for understanding future events. 
• Causal attributions lead to error –especially in the absence of correct external information—when they are based on incorrect conceptual models and information. 
• Dimensions of causal attributions: positive/negative, temporary/permanent; localized/pervasive.

Examples:

p.60 Underpredict on progress bar will lead user's expectation to be exceeded and end up with a happy result.

p.61 People could form a faulty casual relationship to blame themselves for the misfortunes not the devices. Nobody wants to admit to having trouble. This creates a conspiracy of silence, where the feelings of guilt and helplessness among people kept hidden. But on the outside, we tend to blame our behavior to the environment. When we see others do it, we tend to attribute it to their personalities.

Learned Helplessness

• Learned Helplessness: A common outcome when people (and other animals) experience repeated failure at a task. They stop trying. It can lead to depression in the extreme cases.
• It can explain common phobias people develop in response to problems using technology. People frequently blame themselves, especially when few people admit publicly to having similar problems. A type of self-fulfilling prophecy. it can be replaced with a Positive Psychology spin; 

Positive Psychology

Remove failure from our vocabulary and replace it with learning experience. People should be taught ”to fail often and fail fast.” We often learn more from failures than successes. But we must do so safely!

Advice to designers:

• Do not blame people when they fail to use your products properly
• Take people's difficulties as signifiers of where the product can be improved
• Eliminate error messages from electronic systems; provide help and guidance instead
• Make it possible to correct problems directly from help and guidance messages. 
• Assume what people have done is partially correct. Allow people to continue in their tasks - don't impede the process - help make it smooth and continuous. (accommodate!) Never make people start over