Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Design as Communication (17 Nov 2004) To put it simply, most digital systems fail when they fail to provide a story, when there is a poor conceptual model. The notorious BMW iDrive provides a perfect example. The iDrive is well thought out, very logical, and sensible. The problem is that logic is absolutely the wrong tool. The iDrive, for those who have not yet experienced it, is a single control knob plus display that is intended to control many of the non-driving functions of the automobile – over 700 functions, bragged BMW in its early literature about the product. The iDrive provided a well thought through hierarchy of menus rather than the disconnected clutter of numerous dials, switches, and gauges that clutter the normal dashboard of the automobile. By logic, the iDrive was a superior device. Alas, people function through stories, not logic. Moreover, people are spatial, we remember where things are in space, whereas the iDrive destroyed spatiality. And finally, the stories we remember and the conceptual models we prefer have to do with how a particular device functions: heating and cooling the automobile, changing the station of the radio, checking what distance remains for our trip. Each activity requires a separate story, separate control, and a separate location for operation. Alas, the iDrive collapsed everything into one location. Article URL: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/design_as_communicat.html Read 57 more articles from Don Norman sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: The End of Usability Culture, Redux     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy