Obedience to Authority

In Obedience to Authority, tests were performed on people to see to what level that they would inflict pain on another person if they were told to do so. The basis for this was from the experiments carried out in Nazi Germany. Part of the idea was to see if people "were following orders." Many different setups were tested. The subject was told to administer to shocks to another person when they messed up in a learning exercise. No shocks were actually administered, but the person faked it.

This is an interesting idea, however I think there are very real ethical concerns that should have been addressed. SOme people might be emotionally damaged from the experiment. I don't think this was ever taken into account properly. Even once they realized that they didn't actually hurt anybody, they still realized what they would do and to what level.

Emotional Design

Emotional Design was about how things affect emotionally and how that relates to utility and usability of the product. The book says how even if something is not useful. The basic idea is that we can like something and hold it in high esteem if it has great meaning to us.

I can agree with this. For example, I've gotten annoyed lately at windows 7 because I've been having some issues with it. While on the other hand, things that serve no purpose I like a lot. One such example would be this toy plastic fish that my grandfather gave me many years ago. It sits on my bookshelf and reminds me of him whenever I see it.

Inmates are Running the Asylum

The second part of the book discussed ways to look at programming and concepts regarding design. An interesting concept here was persona's. Instead of designing for users, you design for specific imaginary people. This allows you to have clearer set goals.

I thought that the second half of the book was quite decent. The persona idea was what I got the most out of. It was a way I had never though of before as how to think about when building something.