Thanks to the iPad, my renewed reading efforts have finally got me reading Don Norman‘s classic “The Design of Everyday Things“.
So far, it’s as great a read as promised. Published originally in 1988, the tenents discussed in the book feel timeless. The only clue to the book’s genre is the images used for illustration.
Anyway, I just read an interesting section about self-blame, i.e. the tendency of people to blame themselves when they fail to operate something correctly.
You see this all the time with technology.
Interestingly, Norman notes that this feeling of self-blame runs counter to the normal blame attributions people make. He says:
In general, it has been found that people attribute their own problems to the environment, those of other people to their personalities.
So, self-blame is an anomaly. What causes it? Counter evidence to one’s perception of intelligence? Shame and embarrassment?
Think about it. I’m sure we’ve all blamed ourselves when some piece of technology doesn’t behave. I usually feel like I should know better, as if my general knowledge must somehow translate to all things geeky.
Sure, sometimes I blame a design flaw, which is more inline with psychology, but most of the time my ego convinces me I can do anything technical, which is very typical among geeks. We don’t RTFM.
This stuff fascinates me.
I think you nailed it with the ‘RTFM’ reference. We blame ourselves because we know we should have read the manual. The magic idea was to make the manual so big no-one would read it, and then they went the extra step and made it out of HTML or context-sensitive help so that no matter how much you read, you’d never know if you’d actually read it all.
But even if they blame themselves, they still end up hating the creator.
Interesting. My self-blame isn’t manual based, but I think most people would fit that behavior. If true, you’re essentially proving the point, i.e. whatever it is should work without instruction.
Apple has been going that route. The original iPhone had a thin booklet of instructions. The iPad had nothing bc “you already know how to use it”.
Of course, the “it” is Google, not the device 🙂
Tenets, man. Tenets. Unless he was talking about the little people who rent space in everyday things.
Sorry, I meant tennis, damn autocorrect. I should know better.
Look what I found: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPad_User_Guide.pdf
No end user reads manuals (admins, implementers do), you tweet your question now. Or ask a 5-year old. Way more efficient. Just had a Twitter answer on how to turn off those stupid Growl notifications because I had DropBox installed.
Growl isn’t stupid, it’s awesome.
I included a bit on the flow of questions a couple years ago. They always follow the path of least resistance, and unfortunately, documentation is low on that list and high on resistance.
Hi Jake – any room on your iPad for “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck? Have you read it? It blew me away. Not that your blog is a place for sharing reading lists I know, but any old chance to try and tell people about how good that book is, I’ll take it!
Seems like you enjoy factual books reading your posts. However, not wanting to hide my favourite books under a bushel, you might also like these:
A Kestrel for a Knave, by Barry Hines
About a Boy, by Nick Hornby
Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
Brave New World, by Alduous Huxley
Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
Crow Road, by Iain Banks
Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation, by Alan Paton
Day of the Tryffids, by John Wyndham
Lord Of The Flies, by William Golding
Lord Of The Rings, by Tolkien
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
Private Peaceful, by Michael Morpurgo
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor
The 39 Steps, by John Buchan
The Corrections, by Joanathan Franzen
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
The Graduate, by Charles Webb
The Shining, by Stephen King
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
Three Men On A Boat, by Jerome K Jerome
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
If you hate them all, I won’t be offended!
I read “East of Eden” many years ago, good recommendation. The blog is absolutely a great place to share book recommendations.
I see some good ones I’ve read on your list, as well as some new ones. Thanks. I enjoy reading fiction too and plan to get back on that road soon. I have been meaning to reread “Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson for about a decade now, definitely a geeky read if you’re into that.
Thanks dude.
Definitely agree about Cryptonomicon. I’ve read that a couple of times – the WW2 bits / bits in the jungle / mine / shark attacks were very haunting. My wife loves the Neal Stephenson books. I liked them up to Cryptonomicon, but after that, with The Baroque Trilogy / Anathem, I couldn’t get on with them.
East of Eden made the biggest impression though. Samuel Hamitlon is a wonderful character. Second would be To Kill A Mockingbird. If only I could be as good a man as Atticus Finch!
Funny about Stephenson, I stopped reading for a while after Cryptonomicon, and I was just wondering if the Baroque Trilogy was any good.
It’s been too long for me to remember East of Eden, must find the ebook and reread it.
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