After having been asked “What do you think is most important about interface?” Don Norman responded that interfaces are NOT the place to start, but instead explained that design happens during ideation (or conceptual phase), and that design is a collaboration of different fields of knowledge working together to create sensitive and effective tools: tools that respond to user needs.
Norman stressed the importance of understanding the logic behind the act of designing, which includes considerations for the human factor. In this interview he sets ground rules for ‘good design’ and focuses on the idea that design should be inherently ‘humane’; which is to say that technological tools need to be thought of with a user-centered approach. “Cultivate Sensitivity to Design” explains how experimenting (observing, testing, etc.) helps designers reach a place of “empathy” for the user and simplifies complex products or systems in accordance to audience feedback. So, Norman proposes a shift in priorities. The priority is to provide appropriate tools for people that consider the whole system, or the ‘big picture.’ Design should be task-specific.
He suggests that human-centeredness is attainable in design through collaborative work. Involving people from diverse specializations (cognitive scientists, industrial designers, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, etc.) to collaborate in the ideation process can create designs that understand user needs and expectations, and responds to user habits.
In short, having the knowledge background and perfecting tools through prototyping, testing, and experimenting, are primers to any good design creation. In fact, Norman recommends that we invent a new programme of study wherein “each member [would be] trained in design, cognitive science, and programming.”
What I retained from this interview is that: to be a designer is to have the necessary knowledge to create meaningful tools for society. ‘Good design’ requires social-research methodologies and involves a back-and-forth dialogue between users and designers, testing and prototyping (re-designing). ‘Good design’ is also design that understands human beings; that is, design that is sensitive and that follows natural human behaviour and understands both needs and expectations. To be a designer today is to be able to open up to various fields of knowledge and adapting design to changed contexts and audiences.
