Q&A with Don Norman
A freewheeling exchange with a true visionary of interface design
DON NORMAN: No, I don’t. But there’s a prototype of training, which is learning how to do a task for the moment. And there’s a prototype of education, which is understanding deep fundamental principles. If you look at what goes on in training, and you look at what really goes on in universities, the line is horribly blurred. A lot of what you do in universities is really training, and a lot of what you do in training could be called education. If you look in the dictionary, training is defined in terms of education, and vice versa.
LISA NEAL: Do you think that learners need guidance to find a learning environment that minimizes distractions?
DON NORMAN: Yes. But one of the problems of distance education and home study is that you have to be self-motivated. And a lot of people can’t manage it. One of the advantages of a traditional classroom where you have to show up three times a week is that it’s externally motivated.
You asked me once before: As a university professor, isn’t it strange that no one’s ever told me how to teach? Well, as a nation of learners, isn’t it strange we don’t teach people how to learn?
Many years ago Herb Simon was vehement about this. We should be teaching fundamental problem-solving skills and learning skills, not the content, but the skills for doing it. If you had those skills then you could yourself pick up any material you needed.
Although it’s obvious we should study without distractions, so few people do it. Teenagers insist on playing music, television, and having the telephone and cell phone next to them all the time they’re studying, and claim that there’s no problem. I would love to see somebody study this. My personal belief is that they’re not doing deep learning, they’re not doing deep studying. Maybe with the material they have they don’t need to. I believe the music they play could actually be helping them.
I’ve been focusing my research recently on the study of affect and emotion, in part because I want to build intelligent robots that are autonomous, and the only way to make them exist and be smart is to give them affective emotion. And for the first time I think there’s enough known where we can make advances.
I’m learning a number of things, including the fact that the affective system is a very powerful information processing system that places value judgments. It makes rapid value judgments, plus-affect and minus-affect. And those value judgments affect the way the cognitive system processes information. It truly does. Slight arousal and especially apprehension focuses you.
LISA NEAL: Is that what music might be doing for teenagers?
DON NORMAN: That’s what music might be doing. If you’re slightly pleased and happy, you end up actually being slightly dis-focused. Which makes you a better creative problem solver. You’re more easily distractible, but you’re also doing more breadth-first thinking and more out-of-the-box thinking. When you’re slightly anxious you do more depth-first thinking and are less distracted.
LISA NEAL: Can you, under certain circumstances, enhance an online student’s state of nervousness through music?
DON NORMAN: Artists have always thought so--hence, the use of music in movies. Movies go to great efforts to recreate realism on screen and get you involved, yet feel it essential that they have music in the background. They feel it really adds to the interpretation and experience. It’s often the case that artists are ahead of scientists. What scientists do is notice what the artists have done, and then try to understand it.
LISA NEAL: With corporate training, some people saw going to training classes as a benefit--time away from work, travel, coffee and donuts, etc. Do you think there’s something there that can be motivating for people?
DON NORMAN: Yes, because if you take a look at even higher education, education is only a small part of it. When you go to the university it’s the last stage of the maturation process. It’s where you meet your lifetime friends and contacts. It’s where you have your last fling. Sometimes it’s the first time away from home. I certainly believe that company education is related--you get to meet people from all the other branches of the company. It is a relief from your day-to-day work. You break out of your normal diets, have donuts and lots of coffee, and go out drinking every night. Those are very positive things. Most companies treat this as an extra expense, instead of an opportunity, but they can help build company loyalty and pay back as much as the things that are learned.
LISA NEAL: What can be done to enhance the learner experience?
DON NORMAN: There’s a really important concept, which is flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi told me that I was just trying to recreate the flow experience, and I think he’s right. Flow is a wonderful experience when you do it. Sometimes a good book can cause it, or good theatre, or movie. The world disappears and you’re focused entirely on the material.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues that you have to have just the right amount of challenge--that’s what I think the proper learning state is, if you can somehow manage it. That’s what’s so difficult in a lecture. Sometimes you have the people spellbound, but if I can do it for five minutes, I’m lucky. And with a large lecture you can’t do it for everybody. And that’s where the distractions of modern life destroy it. You get into the flow state and the phone rings--and it’s gone.
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