Control vs. Competency

[elfs]

Don Norman wrote Emotional Design and The Design of Everyday Thing, and is famous in the design community for his thoughtful approach to physical design. But I have to take a counterpoint to his recent essay, "Simplicity is Highly Overrated". Don has a point about a new washing machine from Siemens that was even more automated, less likely to damage your clothing, than a previous model, and yet despite this incredible automation it had even more controls than the previous model. He called the UI designer at Siemens and asked him about it. "Are you one of those people who wants to give up control, who thinks less is better? Don't you want to be in control?"

And I had to answer, as Don did, "Yes, I think less is better."

I think the second question is fascinating, because I think it contains a hidden bit of misdirection: "Don't you want to be in control?" hides the question, "Control of what?"

Omaha tells me that I'm incompetent when it comes to washing clothes. There's a cheat-sheet of settings next to the washing machine that lets me know what settings are to be set for what sets^* of clothes. Programming the washing machine is a competency: I don't want to have to remember all those little details so I have transferred that competency to a small sheet of paper and put it in proximity to the device it controls. The only assurance I need is to know that the paper itself is competent.

Thus the purchasing decision. "Do you want to pay more money for less control?" The assumption here is that I want to be in control of the washing machine, when what I really want is to be competent at washing my clothes. I am willing to pay more money to be more competent. If I transfer that competency to the machine itself, and have to only assess that competency once-- at purchasing time-- then I've freed up important mental resources to do something other than know about how to wash my clothes and I've reduced my own anxiety about getting it right every time I stuff clothes into the machine.

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^* This sentence reminds me that the word "set" has the most insanely long entry in the dictionary.

Comments

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I was addressing Don's point that there is a core set of competencies around laundry, like separating the delicates from the jeans, and the darks from the lights. (I did like Cheryl Mendelson (Of Home Comforts fame)'s observation that laundry labels are so confounding that it's no wonder so many college students, faced with their own laundry for the first time, fall into despair and nihilism.) Beyond that, however, I question the degree of difference so many dozens of settings on a washing machine will really have, and are really justified.

The core competencies of laundry are quite small compared to those of cooking, and I question the need for many of those competencies to be contained both in my head and in the machine. Which is really what we're talking about here: I know enough to not wreck my clothes. Having a machine that can work with me is a boon, but when getting to that state requires a programming degree it ceases to be a boon and returns to being a chore.