[Sigia-l] Do Make Me Think!

[Dave Chiu]

> doesn't that place the "blame" on someone else if  it doesn't work?

I don't think it does. As Tufte's been saying for a long time,  
designers have a responsibility to present information faithfully,  
accurately, and truthfully. (I'm paraphrasing)

Ultimately, your decision to buy or not to buy a particular airfare  
is your decision, not mine as a designer of the web site. However, my  
design does affect how you come about making that decision. And I  
think that one of the major ways design can influence decision-making  
is by providing context. (Think of Tufte's sparklines.)

Context implies added levels of complexity, either in the amount of  
information a designer must process when creating a design that  
compresses that information, or in the amount of information that an  
end user must manage. And I think we all have a natural tendency to  
shy away from complexity, a la the "don't make me think" theme: that  
is, it can just as easily be applied to designers as to consumers.

To wit, the following quote from Donald Norman (which I happened to  
run across quite by accident on Tufte's site):

Technology is not neutral. Technology has properties--affordances-- 
that make it easier to do some activities, harder to do others: The  
easier ones get done, the harder ones neglected. Each has its  
constraints, preconditions, and side effects that impose requirements  
and changes on the things with which it interacts, be they other  
technology, people, or human society at large. Finally, each  
technology poses a mind-set, a way of thinking about it and the  
activities to which it is relevant, a mind-set that soon pervades  
those touched by it, often unwittingly, often unwillingly. The more  
successful and widespread the technology, the greater its impact upon  
the thought patterns of those who use it, and consequently, the  
greater its impact upon all of society. Technology is not neutral, it  
dominates.

Norman, Donald A., Things that Make Us Smart, Perseus Books, 1993, p.  
243

I think the more pertinent question that arises out of all of this  
is: does everyone have to become an expert at everything, or can  
context provide enough information to make individuals temporary  
experts and able to make the best decision possible at a given moment  
in time? More specifically, are we talking about know-how that's  
permanent, or something akin to "on-demand" know-how? (Of course, "on- 
demand" know-how, if used often enough, will have some teaching  
effects.)

Taken to an extreme, I'm really not interested in becoming a  
carpenter to assemble IKEA furniture, a broker to trade shares, or a  
travel agent to book a flight. But I do want to know enough to make  
the best decision I can in a given situation at a given time, and the  
service or product which best enables me to do so will get my  
business. Consider the newspaper which provides only a stock's most  
recent price quote versus an online trading service which provides  
news, the trading ranges for the last 50 days, trend analysis, etc.

Clearly, it's easy to simply list the current stock price, difficult  
to provide context and its attendant complexity.

I think Will makes a good point about accountability, which I think  
is related to responsibility.

Dave