CCDN 271 Assignment 1 Hand In

CCDN 271, Assignment 1

Assessing and critiquing sources                           

The Everyday essentially means the things that we use everyday, mostly things that we take for granted and have used them so much that it has just become habit for us to use them. Donald A. Norman (2004) talks in his book called ‘Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things’, he talks about the emotional connection which people have with everyday objects which they own.

The book starts off with Norman discussing the fact that he has a collection of three teapots at his home. One of them is completely unusable because it has a broken handle, the second and third are useable. But he goes on to say that he doesn’t use any of the three when he makes his tea. He says that the reason why he keeps these 3 teapots even though Norman (2004) doesn’t use them, is because ‘I value my teapots not only for their function for brewing tea, but because they are sculptural artwork’ (pg4).

What Norman writes about in his book is greatly linked to my research topic of the everyday. I chose this book because he talks about how the things we use in our everyday lives might not be very practical (like the three teapots) but are things that we are attached to because they have a symbolic meaning or a emotional connection to us.

Norman adds several personal experiences of his in his book, he gives the example of when he got his first computer which had a black and white screen and once he got his first colour monitor, Norman (2004) realized that ‘color added no discernible value for everyday work. Yet I refused to give up the color display’ (pg9).  This demonstrates even more evidence which relates to my topic. That the everyday objects which we use like colour computers and broken teapots might not be practical to use, but we still keep them around because we love them.

He also goes on to talk about how it’s not only emotion that is a major factor in the everyday, but another major theme is the behavior of the human subconscious. Our subconscious is something which greatly affects the everyday things we use. We are now so used to doing the same thing everyday that we subconsciously do things automatically without realizing them. An example of this is when you get up out of bed in the morning. Most people repeat the same routine every morning that they now do it without even thinking about it.

The things Norman says in his book will help me with my research topic as he covers why we use our everyday objects over other objects which we can get that are used for the same things. Not only that, but Normans book will also help me because he uses a lot of his own examples in his book which I can quote in my research paper.

Bibliography

Norman, Donald A.. "Prologue." Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. New York: Basic Books, 2004. 3 - 1