Session 9

Knowledge in the Head and in the World

820:240

Environment, Technology, and Society

Exercise: Knowledge in and out of my head

Context

You have read Chapter 3 of The Design of Everyday Things and learned a bit about how knowledge can take different forms, both in a user's mind and in the world itself.

Goals

1. To understand how different kinds of knowledge can affect the usability of a device -- and how we can design things better.

Tasks

Work in teams of three or four people based on the number in the upper right-hand corner of this page.

Pick some computer program that everyone in your team has used, such as an e-mail program, a web browser, or Microsoft Word. Base your answers to the following tasks on your collective experience using the program.

1. Come up with two or more examples for each kind of "knowledge in the head" that the program requires:
   • arbitrary knowledge
   • knowledge of meaningful relationships
   • knowledge understood by explanation

2. Come up with two or more examples for each kind of "knowledge in the world" that the program offers or requires:
   • reminding
   • natural mappings
   • natural or cultural constraints

3. Choose one of your answers from the previous two tasks in which the user can have difficulty using the program correctly. Offer an improvement to the program by changing the kind of memory required. For example, you might replace some arbitrary knowledge in the head with a natural mapping, or a reminding with some knowledge understood by explanation.

As always, if you don't feel like you understand an idea from Norman's yet, or if my instructions are unclear, this is a good time to discuss the idea and ask questions!

At the End

1. Your group submits a written report of your results from the three tasks. As always, your report should summarize any discussion that ensued and should answer any questions directly asked.
2. Each group will present some of its conclusions, anbd participate in wild discussion.

Summary from Exercise

Examples from my experience...

• arbitrary knowledge -- short-cut keys
• knowledge of meaningful relationships -- page: doc :: printing : ...
• knowledge understood by explanation -- Far Side example; save to disk

• reminding -- "send me some e-mail..."
• natural mappings -- icons
• natural or cultural constraints -- turning a steering wheel (clockwise vs counterclockwise); widows and orphans? margins?

More complex devices usually give more, and more interesting, answers to this exercise. Simpler devices, including most everyday devices, are created to require little in the way of explicit knowledge to operate them. Simple programs can be like that, too.

Do you believe the "labels" principle (Page 78)? I apply it to CS students writing comments in programs...

I thought the motorcycle turn signal was cool. Find a mapping that fits (in this case, the way the handlebars work) and suddenly the problem goes away. Do you think that is what the designers intended?

Students Summaries

• Today in class we talked about knowledge and its different forms. In order to complete some sort of task we need to have a certain amount of knowledge. That knowledge will tell us how to accomplish a particular task. First we talked about the "knowledge in the head".

  Arbitrary knowledge represents things that wouldn't make any sense outside of the task context. For example, if we are working with "MS Word" and we need to copy and paste something, we can use the "CTRL+C" and "CTRL+V" shortcuts.

  Knowledge of meaningful relationship refers to how we assign relationship between symbols. It can be very much affected by culture. One of the examples that [the instructor] gave in class was the octagon-shaped "STOP" button on the "Internet Explorer's" tool bar. It will not necessarily mean "STOP" for people from other cultures, but it most likely will for those living in USA.

  Knowledge understood by explanation means that we all have some knowledge/ideas in mind but we sometimes require additional explanation about how to actually do something. [The instructor] gave an example of how non-computer users may not realize that they have to save their information because they don't have to save anything when they are just writing it in their notes. After you walk them through the process of why it needs to be saved and how, then it becomes fairly easy for them to do it and they understand it well.

  Then we talked about "knowledge in the world"

  Reminding: An example of reminding can be the "Caps lock" sign on my home computer. My keyboard doesn't have a "Caps Lock" light that would tell me if the CAPS is on or off. But whenever I am trying to type in a password a little window will come up on my screen and tell me that my CAPS is on.

  Natural Mapping: One of the groups in class gave an example of mapping. They said that if one needs to get to MS Word, they can go START->PROGRAM FILES->MS WORD. Also it was suggested that Icons can be great examples of mapping.

  Natural and Cultural Constrains: We usually assume that we have default orientation in culture. But in some countries people read from right to left, or drive on the other side of the road. This suggests that every knowledge can be affected by cultural constrains.

• Today in class our group activities corresponded with Chapter 3 in Norman's book. We were asked to use a computer program that everyone had experience. We were then asked to come up with two examples of knowledge in the head for each of the following categories: arbitrary knowledge, knowledge of meaningful relationships, and knowledge understood by explaination. We were also asked to come up with two examples of knowledge in the world for each of the following categories: reminding, natural mappings, and natural or cultural constraints. We were then asked to use one of our answers for the above, and make it easier for the user by switching the form of knowledge. Many of the groups used programs such as MS Word and the UNI email. Most of the improvements in the products that the groups discussed was replacing the current type of knowledge used to using natural mapping. There seemed to be a consensus that naturall mapping tended to be the form that was thought to be the easiest to use.

• Knowledge in the head -- groups used Microsoft Word and UNI e-mail.
  Chapter 3 talks about knowledge and gets away from devices totally. Tasks that carry out and you have help to do it. Arbitrary Knowledge has good and bad sides, but more arbitrary knowledge the better. [Actually, just the opposite!! -- EW] Meaningful Relationship: Relationships within the program, or with something outside the program. Knowledge by explanation: Example: learn thing by explanation ... Cartoon old "Far Side", Geeky cave man standing in fire wiht meat on a stick, pain free cooking. Everything the other cavemen needed was there in their heads but they needed to have the idea demonstrated or explained to them before they could put it all together. Moral of story: sometimes you need things explained to you to get something. Natural mapping: (Microsoft Word) Examples: Icons, Start Menu to Program to "Word". Tool Bars too. Natural/cultural constrants: turning the steering wheel.

• The sessson that we work on today wsa called "knowledge in the Head and in the World. The first part of the class we worked in groups and worked through the handout. I learned what arbitrary knowlege was, and we discussed what it was in class. It is the knowledge you need to do something. We talked about how shortcuts are arbitraty and how they can have a good and bad side to them. After the idividual groups finised, the classs rejoined for a class discussion. My group volunteered for the meaningful relationship portion of the worksheet. We decided that a meaningful relationship for Explorer would be the back/forward buttons.

  This is arbitrary because it is hard to explain the button to a first time user. We discussed that for first time user a story helps them fiqure things out. Other people in the class discuss different parts of the worksheet. One group said that icons are great natural maps because they are relationships outside the program. The last thing that was discussed was cultural constraints. Examples of which are the stop sign that is used on the Explorer program. Many other cutures would have no knowledge of the octagon [meaning 'stop', at least]. After the discussion the class was ended.