Digital Young

Cismigiu Park 1

Cismigiu Park 2

Cismigiu Park 3

Old streets in the Ancient Bucharest Centre

Selari Street

Street nr 2

Lipscani Street

And some things that stroke me walking on Lipscani Street…

A crappy outside bar, where it is sold beer and strong alcohol. But despite all drunk people coming there, I like it.

Old shops, with communist vestiges. You can see up old letters saying FAMILIA = Family in Romanian and it meant that there was a shop with items for all the family.

Old shop with artisan Romanian items. Objects that tourists like a lot. And also there are sold different types of shoes.

Just a few meters away from the artisan shop, there are these panels painted with graffiti.

And another little street.

Maybe you will find this question a little bit stupid. But then, if you start to think about it, it might not appear like that. Objects around us touch us in an emotional way.

Again, Donald A. Norman writes a great book. That he talks about at: http://www.jnd.org/books.html#E&Dbook_notes.

As he puts it, objects are about loving or hating them. We don’t choose an object if we don’t like it. It is the natural way. Things have an emotional design; those that are attractive work better and make sense for us.

Collected things are emotional. Again, Norman gives the example of Carelman’s teapot. It is, by intent, impossible to use. But, do we use the collected things? How does the attachment to objects is constructed?

“I value my teapots not only for their function for brewing tea, but because they are sculptural work. I love standing in front of the window, comparing the contrasting shapes, watching the play of light on the varied surfaces.” (Norman, 2004:4). Yes, we do like objects because of their utility, functionality, but also (or mostly) for their design. Ask a friend or a colleague to tell you what’s his favorite object from his house and he will definitely say that object’s story.

As Norman says, “the story of teapots illustrates several components of product design: usability (or lack thereof), aesthetics, and practicality.” (Norman, 2004:4,5). And continues: “But what many people don’t realize is that there is also a strong emotional component to how products are designed and put to use.” And he argues that exactly this emotional component is the factor for an object’s success than its practical elements. Meaning if you want, the story behind the utility.

And I will finish with another quotation: “…three different aspects of design: visceral, behavioral and reflective. Visceral design concerns itself with appearances (…). Behavioral design has to do with pleasure and the effectiveness of use (…). Finally, reflective design considers the rationalization and intellectualization of a product. Can I tell a story about it?” (Norman, 2004:5).

So, which one are you? What do you like about an object? And why does that particular object, that you liked all your life, starts to annoy you one of a sudden? These are questions that can be asked when thinking about our grandma’s obsession with putting a lot of things in her room or her house, or when I think about our parents’ obsession with putting in the library gewgaws, like this:

And…

Reading Bogdana’s blog (http://bogdanatheplanner.blogspot.com), I saw she recommended a book that I also liked a lot:

I think that, just as Miller’s book, it is this kind of book that just make your day. In the sense that, reading them, you say to yourself: Hmmm, I saw these things [that they describe], but I didn’t think at this perspective! Besides that, they are authors that, in their domain, they really made a point. And, if you are interested in theories that explain the unexplainable, as I think to be the everyday life, well, again, this is the right book for that. Why do I say this? Don’t you think that things that are the most common and familiar to us, those are the most difficult to explain?

So, here is an author from material culture studies, a guy who, again, influenced my way of seeing things. After reading this book, you will pay more attention to objects around you, you’ll start to think that maybe they are more important in your life than you thought. If Time magazine said that this book is provocative, well, than you might trust their opinion better than mine. :-p

So, Norman starts by asking himself (and us) why all these items around us are supposed to make our life better when, in order to use them, we need all sorts of manuals, guides, or key operators? Therefore, Norman starts questioning our use of everyday things and the increasing difficulty of their use. “This book is intended to make you aware of the problems of design and interested in improving things. Many readers have told me that it has changed their lives, making them more sensitive to the problems of life and to the needs of people”, he says (Normal, 1998:v).

He raises the problem of the supposed intelligent objects, objects that are built in order to replace more and more human actions, but they are so intelligent, that they come with big use manuals that actually nobody reads. As a psychologist, Norman explains that his interest started from his incapacity at working the everyday things and if this incapacity is really a technique incompetency or is there something else. How come people today use less and less functions and features of an intelligent object? This is indeed an important question.

Norman calls this a psychopathology of today’s objects and everyday things. Because they get so complicated that people have to put up, as Norman says, with all sorts of frustrations, frustrations that come from the way that human mind works. For instance, “the human mind is exquisitely tailored to make sense of the world.” (Norman, 1998: 2). Everything that escapes from this sense, becomes frustrating and absurd.

Norman thinks that the source of this psychopathology is the bad design. And he gives the example of Carelman’s Coffeepot for Masochists, in Jacques Carelman’s book, Catalogue d’objets introuvables (translated at Humanitas, Catalogul obiectelor de negasit).

A bad design breaks some basic rules: visibility, mapping, relating (a failure to relate the new functions to the similarly named functions that people already know about), appropriate clues, feedback at one’s actions. “These principles constitute a form of psychology – the psychology of how people interact with things” (Norman, 1998:9).

Just think about how you KNOW to use an object just by looking at it; balls are for throwing or bouncing. Simple things should not require explanation. “When simple things need pictures, labels or instructions, the design has failed”. Put yourself some questions about the everyday use of everyday things and think about these aspects of your use of objects. This could be a passionate exercise for better knowing yourself and also the world you live in.