The Design of Future Things, Chapter 5

Reference Information
The Design of Future Things
Donald A. Norman
Basic Books, New York, 2009


Summary
Chapter five of The Design of Future Things discuses where automation should fit in our daily lives, specifically the author makes examples of 'modern' research homes where technology can be either obtrusive or seamless. Automation is enormously useful for jobs that are too tedious, dangerous, or messy for humans. Automation has also been extended to simplifying jobs and mere entertainment. The process of automation also inevitably leads to many consequences, with a significant number of these being unintentional. One of the common consequences is the additional maintenance that is required for introducing machines, but in some cases this is not so much of an inconvenience. The author used the example of the coffee maker which took away the time-wasting act of making coffee in the morning but added the necessity of making time to clean the machine, although this can be done at the user's convenience.


The bulk of the chapter describes some real research projects involving intelligent homes. The author expresses the opinion that intelligent homes that attempt to optimize its inhabitant's lives by controlling their every action will ultimately lead to failure. Instead, he proposes that houses should be augmented instead of automated by letting the ultimate decision of what to do or use up to the person, otherwise the person will end up living in the house's world. Augmentative devices need to be "voluntary, friendly, and cooperative" so that each user can use them to the extent that he or she needs while still remaining in control. Automation, as stated above, is best for situations where it may be too dangerous or boring for people to operate effectively. Full automation is best in environments where the task is completely understood and unexpected things happen rarely.


Opinion
This chapter offers very little new material since most of the author's ideas on this subject had already been expressed in the previous chapters. He discussed some ongoing research into future homes and annoyingly stated that the obvious path of technology was to basically remove most chores from our lives. I would ask the author whether many of the chores may serve more purpose than pure tedium, since I believe that these simple tasks may have a larger impact on us than simple annoyances.

Refrigerator magnets: indispensable