毕业设计外文翻译—《设计心理学》

The Frustations of Everday Life

If I were placed in the cockpit of a modern jet airliner,my inability to perfrom gracefully and smoothly would neither surprise mor bother me.But I shouldn’t have troulb with doors and switches,water faucets and stoves.”Doors?”I can hear the reader saying ,”you have troublr opening doors?” yes. I push doors that are meant to be pulled, pull doors that should be pushed, and walk into doors that should be slid. Moreover, I see others having the same troubles--unnecessary trouble. Thereare psychological that can be followed ta make these things understandable and usable.

Consider the door.There is not much you can do to a door:you can open it or shut it.. Suppose you are in an office building, walking down a corridor. You come to a door . In which direction does it open? Shouldyou pull or push,on the left or theright? Maybe the door slides. If so,in which direction? I have seen doors that slide up into the criling. A door poses only two essential questions: In which direction does it move? On which side should one work it? The answers should be given by the design,without any need for words or symbols, certainly wihout any need for trial and error.

A friend tolld me of the time he got teapped in the doorway of a post office in a European city .The entrance was an imposing row of perhaps six glass swinging doors, followed immediately by a second, identical row. that’s a standard design: it helps reduce the airflow and thus maintain the indoor temperature of the building

My friend pushed on the side of one of the leftmost pair of outer doors. It swung inward, and he entered the building. Then,before he could get to the next row of doors, he was distracted and turned around for an instant. He didn’t realize it at the time,but he had moved slightly to the right. So when he came to the next door and pushed it, nothing happened. “Hmm,”he thought, “must be locked.”So he pushed the side of the adjacejt door. Nothing. Puzzled,my feiend decided to go outside again. He turned around and pushed against the side of a door.Nothing. He pushed abjacent door.Nothing.the door he had just entered no longer worked. Heturned around once more and tried the inside doors again. Noting.Concern,then mild panic. He was trapped! Just then, a group of people on the other side of the entranceway (to my friend’s right ) passed easily through both sets of doors. My friend hurried over to follow their path.

How could such a thing happen? A swinging door has two sides. One contains the supporting pillar and the hige, the other is unsupported. To open the door, you mustpush on the unsupported edge. If you push on the hinge side, nothing happens. In this case, the designer aimed for beauty, not utility. No distracting lines, no visible pillars, no visible higes. So how can the ordinary user know which side to push on? While distracted, my friend had moved toard the (invisible)supporting pillar, so he was pushing the doors on the higed side. No wonder noting happened. Pretty doors. Elegant. Probably won a design prize.

The doors story illustrates one of the most important principles of design: visiblity. The correct parts must be visible, and they must convey the correct message. With doors that push, the designer must provide signals that naturally indicate where to push. These need not destroy the aesthetics.Put a vertical plate on the side tobe pushed,nothing on the other. Or make the supporting

pillars visible. The vertical plate and supporting pillars are natural signals, naturally interpreted, without any need to be conscious of them. I call the use of natural signals natural design and elaborate on the approach throughout this book.

Visibillty problems come in many forms. My friend, trapped between the glass doors, suffered from alack of clues that would indicate what part of a door should be operated. Other problems concern the mappings between what you want to do and what appears to be possible, another topic thar will be espanded upon throughout the book. Consider one type of slide projector.This projector has a single button to control whether the slide tray moves forward or backward. One button to de two things? What is the mapping? How can you figure out how to control the slides? You can’t Nothing is visible to give the slighest hint.Here is what happened to me in one of the many unfamiliar places I’ve lectured in during my travels as a professor: The Leitz slide projector illustrated in figure 1.3 has shown up several times ,it led to a rather dramatic incident. A conscientious student was in charge of showing my slides. Istarted my talk and showed the first slide. When I finished with the first slide and asked for the next, the student carefully pushed the control button an watched in dismany as the tray backed up,slid out of the projectorand plopped off the table onto the floor, spilling its entire contents .We had to delay the lecture fifteen minutes while I struggled to reorganize the slides. It wasn’t the student’s fault. It was the fault of the elegant projector. With only one button tocontrol the slide adwance, how could one switch from forward toreverse? Neither of us could figure out how tomake the control work.

Allduring the lecture the slides would sometimes go forward, sametimes backward. Afterward, we found the local technician, who explained it to us. A briefpush of the button and the slide would go forward, a long push and it would reverse. (Pity the conscientious student who kept pushing it hard-and long -to make sure that the switch was making contact.) what an elegant design. Why, it managed to do two functions with only one button! But how was a first-time user of the projector to know this?

日常生活中的烦恼

如果我不能熟练灵活地使用现代喷气式飞机驾驶舱内的仪表，我不会感到惊讶或不按。但我不应该在使用门、开关、水龙头和炉子时出现问题。我似乎听见读者在说：“门？你不会开门吗？”是的本来应该拉的门，我却用手去推;应该推的门，我却用手去拉；有时还会撞在滑动推拉门上。我看见其他人遇到过也遇到过同样的麻烦——不必要的麻烦，这里有些心理学原理可以帮助我们设计出用户看得懂而且又方便使用的产品。

以门为例。我们在使用门时，无外乎两种动作；开或关。假设你走在办公楼内的走廊上，然后一扇门前停下来，应该从哪个方向开这扇门？是推是拉？从左边是是从右边？也许这是一个滑动拉门，如果真是这样，应该往哪个方向华东？我曾见过往上方开的门，令我颇感惊讶。使用门时，我们只会遇到两个基本问题，门应该朝哪个方向开，用户应该往那边用力。这些问题的答案应该在门的设计上找到，而无需用文字或字符加以说明，更不应该让用户在英国反复的实验和出错后再找到答案。

一位朋友向我讲述了他被困在欧洲某城市一家邮局的门道里出不来的情景。邮寄的入口很气派，六扇双开式的弹簧门排成一排，紧接着还有一排同种样式的门。这是一种标准设计，目的是为了减少空气的流通，从而保持楼内的温度恒定。

我的这位朋友推开了外边靠左的那扇门，走进了大楼。在来到第二排玻璃门之前，他因为某事分心。转了个身，当时没有意识到自己往右边移动了一点。他来到第二排门前，用力一推，没反应。“一定是锁上了。”他心想，于是又去推旁边那扇门，还是打不开。我的朋友一脸迷惑，决定沿原路返回，便转身去推外面的那扇门，没动静。退旁边的那一扇，仍旧没反应。他刚刚从这扇门走进来，还是打不开。他开始担心起来，甚至有些惊慌——自己被困在门道里了！正在这时一群人从入口的另一边（我朋友在右边）很轻松的通过了这两道门，于是他赶紧跑过去，跟他们走进了邮局。

怎么会发生这样的事？

双开式弹簧门有两边，一边又固定缓缓走和铰链，另一边可以自由开关。开门时，你必须推可以自由开关的那一边，如果推有铰链的那一边，门就不可被打开。在上述情景中，设计人员只注意到了门的美观，而未注意到门的易用性。结果是，用户在使用这些门时看不到旋轴，一个普通的用户正忙可能知道从一边开门？我的朋友在精力分散时，走到了有固定旋轴一边，他用力推有铰链的那一侧，难怪门纹丝不动。不过这些门却相当漂亮雅致，可能还荣获过设计奖呢。

以上例子说明了设计中的一项重要原则：客观性。正确的草垛部位必须显而易见；而且还要向用户传达出正确的信息。在设计那些用力推才能打开的门时，设计人员必须让用户一看见门，就知道往哪个部位推。应该推的那一侧贴上垂直金属板，或将固定旋轴显露出来——这并不影响门的美观。垂直金属板和固定旋轴属于自然信号，可以被用户直接感知到。我爸这种对自然信号的使用称作自然设计，并还将在本书中详细探讨这一方法。

可视性问题有多种表现形式。我的朋友呗困在两排玻璃门之间，是应为他看不到任何有关操作部位的线索。可视性问题的其他表现形式是关于用户操作示意图和可能的操作方法之间的匹配，这是本书将要讨论的另一个话题。以某种类型的投影仪为例，这种投影仪仅靠一个按钮来控制幻灯片槽的前后运动。一个按钮被赋予两种功能？如何进行匹配？你怎样才能知道控制幻灯片的方法？你不可能知道，应为你在投影仪上看不到任何操作方法的提示。一下是我在某个不熟悉的地方讲学时遇到一件事。

我在各处讲学的过程中，有好几次看到莱茨牌的投影仪。首次使用时，发生了一起戏剧性的事故。那次是一名办事认真的学生负责帮我放映幻灯片。当我讲完第一张幻灯片，需要用第二张幻灯片时，那名学生很细心地按下了控制钮。只见幻灯片槽开始往后移动，竟然滑出了投影仪，从桌上“哔啦”一声掉下来。槽内的幻灯片洒落一地。学生大为惊愕，我也赶紧重新整理幻灯片，讲座因此推出即了15分钟。但这不是学生的过错，而是这台式样雅致的投影仪的问题。只用一个按钮来控制幻灯片的前后运动我们谁也搞不明白该如何操作。

在讲座的整个过程中，有需要幻灯片往前放，有时需要往后倒。后来，我们向当地的技术人员求救。他解释说，轻轻按一下控制钮，幻灯片就会往前放；按的时间长一些，幻灯片就

会往后翻转。而我那位可怜的学生！他很认真，在按控制钮是相当卖力，为确保按钮接触到开关，他还特意多按了一会儿。多么雅致的设计，一个按钮竟然具有两个功能！但初次使用这种投影仪的人怎么可能知道这些？

《设计心理学》唐纳德.A.诺曼