A Summary of "Chapter 3: Natural Interaction" from "The Design of Future Things"

Citation
Norman, Donald A. "Chapter 3: Natural Interaction." The Design of Future Things. New York: Basic Books, 2007. 57-90.

Summary / Assessment
In this chapter of the “Design of Future Things”, Donald Norman discusses ideas surrounding the incorporation of natural communication within designs. He draws a distinction between communication and signaling. He writes that “interactive” devices of today signal their users, rather than provide an effective means of natural communication. A dishwasher beeps when the dishes are done. A microwave beeps when food is ready. Such signals may be useful in isolation, but a cacophony of these types of signals may prove to be distracting, un-interpretable, and potentially dangerous. We should use more natural communication and sounds in our designs. Natural sounds (i.e. - sounds we encounter everyday, not sounds generated by an electronic device) can provide the location of an object, reveal their composition, and reveal their activity. The primary example of natural sound/interaction given by Norman is the whistling tea kettle.

This natural communication is referred to as implicit communication. Implicit communication also includes communication afforded by the natural side effects of people’s activities. The messy research laboratory provides the implicit signal that it is being used. Footprints in the sand implicitly tell us that someone has passed by earlier. The presence of sticky notes or underlined passages in a book tells us that the book has been read. These “non-purposeful” clues can inform us of what is happening or what has happened, provide awareness of the environment, and let us know if we should take action or continue on with what we are doing.

Affordances are “the range of activities an animal or person can perform upon an object in the world.” For example: a chair affords sitting or hiding-behind for an adult, but not for an elephant. Affordances are not attributes of an object, but rather, relationships between agents and objects. Affordances exist whether or not they have been discovered; the design challenge is to make affordances apparent to users. If affordances are easily apparent, they guide users’ behavior, and they make object interaction intuitive and natural.

Interaction with autonomous, intelligent devices is particularly challenging because communication has to go both ways (person-to-machine and machine-to-person). Norman offers horseback riding as a good example of interaction between intelligent agents. An important aspect of horseback riding is “tight-reign” and “loose-reign” control. In tight-reign control, power shifts from the horse to the rider; in loose-reign control, power shifts from the rider to the horse. Loose-reign control allows the horse to be more autonomous; however the rider can still provide some oversight through natural interaction of verbal commands, and heel kicks. This idea of allowing the natural variance of independence and interaction is powerful and can be incorporated into designing human-machine interactions.

In the remainder of the chapter, Norman makes a few other points germane to the design of human-machine interaction.

• Be Predictable. - Intelligent machines of the future should not attempt to read user’s minds or predict users’ next actions. There are two issues in doing this: firstly, predictions could be wrong, and secondly, it makes the machine’s actions unpredictable. Unpredictability leads to the user guessing at what the machine is trying to do.
• Don’t distance users from implicit communication. – Today’s automobile isolates its users from certain implicit communication, thereby reducing situational awareness. The user relies more and more on the technology in the automobile (such as automatic lane-keeping). This distancing and reliance can potentially make the automobile more dangerous to operate.
• The best designs compensate human intelligence, rather than supersede it. – For example: power-assisted devices can augment human capabilities, but they also can limit human capabilities where needed.