We the Curious
vol.1 No.20
Everyday things,twenty thousand of them
“There are an amazing number of everyday things,perhaps twenty thousand of them. Are there really thatmany? Start by looking about you.” Donald Norman is a
cognitive scientist, now about to retire, who was the rst
to study the psychological processes needed to operateand comprehend utensils and furniture, computers and
cars, knobs and aps, lids and dials. “In the room I’mworking in,” Norman continues, “I counted more thana hundred specialized objects before I tired. Each is
simple, but each requires its own method of operation,each has to be designed separately.”
“Over the years I have fumbled my way through life,walking into doors, failing to gure out water faucets,
incompetent at working the simple things of everyday
life. ‘Just me,’ I would mumble. ‘Just my mechanicalineptitude.’ But as I studied psychology and watched thebehavior of other people, I began to realize that I was
not alone.” “Suppose that each everyday thing takes only oneminute to learn; learning 20,000 of them occupies20,000 minutes -- 333 hours or about 8 forty-hourwork weeks. Furthermore, we often encounter newobjects unexpectedly, when we are really concerned withsomething else. We are confused and distracted, andwhat ought to be a simple, effortless, everyday thinginterferes with the important task of the moment. How
do people cope?” “This is the everyday we spoke of,” the poet Marie Howeexplains. We cope with everyday things because that is “what the living do.”
“It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and
the sunlight pours through
the open living room windows because the heat’s on toohigh in here, and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries inthe street, the bag breaking,
I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And
yesterday, hurrying along thosewobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling mycoffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying ahairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. Whatyou called that yearning.
What you nally gave up. We want the spring to come
and the winter to pass. We wantwhoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we wantmore and more and then more of it.
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