Number of words – 112 My favorite example of a misleading signifier is a row of vertical pipes across a service road that I once saw in a public park. The pipes obviously blocked cars and trucks from driving on that road: they were good examples of anti-affordances. But to my great surprise, I saw … Read more

Number of words – 208 Signifiers can be deliberate and intentional, such as the sign push on a door, but they may also be accidental and unintentional, such as our use of the visible trail made by previous people walking through a field or over a snow-covered terrain to determine the best path. Or how … Read more

Nuber of words – 78 Affordances exist even if they are not visible. For designers, their visibility is critical: visible affordances provide strong clues to the operations of things. A flat plate mounted on a door affords pushing. Knobs afford turning, pushing, and pulling. Slots are for inserting things into. Balls are for throwing or … Read more

Number of words – 104 Great designers produce pleasurable experiences. Experience: note the word. Engineers tend not to like it; it is too subjective. But when I ask them about their favorite automobile or test equipment, they will smile delightedly as they discuss the fit and finish, the sensation of power during acceleration, their ease … Read more

Number of words – 201 Designers need to focus their attention on the cases where things go wrong, not just on when things work as planned. Actually, this is where the most satisfaction can arise: when something goes wrong but the machine highlights the problems, then the person understands the issue, takes the proper actions, … Read more

Number of words – 229 The reasons for the deficiencies in human-machine interaction are numerous. Some come from the limitations of today’s technology. Some come from self-imposed restrictions by the designers, often to hold down cost. But most of the problems come from a complete lack of understanding of the design principles necessary for effective … Read more

Number of words – 385 A swinging door has two sides. One contains the supporting pillar and the hinge, the other is unsupported. To open the door, you must push or pull on the unsupported edge. If you push on the hinge side, nothing happens. In my friend’s case, he was in a building where … Read more

Number of words – 185 Researchers studying invasive Burmese pythons in Florida came upon something they’d never seen before: an 11-foot-long python had consumed an entire deer that weighed more than the snake itself. The wildlife biologists tracking the slithery creatures stumbled upon bloated snake in Collier Seminole State Park, and when they moved the … Read more

Number of words – 380 A group of researchers led by Oliver Tschauner, a professor of geoscience from the University of Nevada, have discovered a form of super-dense ice known as ice-VII on Earth for the first time. Though ice-VII was known to form in space, and may make up much of ice worlds like … Read more

Number of words – 401 Over millions of years, evolution can do some wild things. In New Zealand, where almost no mammals live natively, birds took on every role in the food chain, from herbivores who waddled on the ground to fruit eaters who lived in the trees, to a giant terrifying eagle with a … Read more