Kristina--I should have been clearer. My comment about Gladwell and the time it takes "to appear natural and/or intuitive" was not about "Blink" or even the role in intuition in design. He does, as Don Norman points out, talk about the training and experience required before "gut feelings" are of great value in "Blink" but my comment was meant to refer to his more recent book, "Outliers." That book deals with our notions of "genius" and makes a strong case for genius being largely the result of the opportunity to put in 10,000 hours of practice at a complex set of skills followed by the luck of having that skill then be of particular value at that time.
Your second point is well taken. I agree and disagree with Don Norman's call for primary sources. Of course, watered down or popularized versions of research are insufficient. His complaint that people misinterpret what Gladwell said in "Blink" is beside the point: Anyone who doesn't understand Gladwell's straightforward and well-crafted prose is going to have a hell of a time with most academic writing. Most news reports of any sort of research are useless; even respected newspapers seem to hire reporters and editors who don't read beyond the press release and don't think about the subject they are reporting on. The worst failings of lack of curiosity, skepticism, understanding, and enthusiasm that plague political reporting seem universal in science reporting.
We need more good and clear popularizers who exhibit the traits of good journalists (Steven Johnson and David Quammen are two others that stand out for me.) We also need more histories and explanations of ideas and areas of study to help serious readers understand enough to know what primary sources are of interest and to provide a framework for thinking that allows a proper job of reading primary sources.
Terry--I found "Blink" interesting but a bit thin. "Outliers" was more coherent and didn't have any of the magazine-article-inflated-to-fill-a-book feeling. It also has more important policy implications in various areas including education.
He talks about the 10,000 hours of work that it takes to be good at anything and how much luck is involved in people getting the opportunity to gain that experience. He also talks about how cultural opportunities affect our ability to do certain things well. Anyone who is smug about meritocracy should definitely read it. I thought I wasn't and some of it surprised me.
Back to the main part of this thread: The sort of intuition that Gladwell talks about in "Blink" may have little in common with the notion of "intuitive design" (i.e., design that is "intuitive" for the user.) Gladwell talks about the skill it takes for someone to learn to make snap decisions for the sake of efficiency as well as how snap decisions made by people with sufficient background are often better than the slower, "reasoned" decisions that they might make. (He also talks about the pitfalls of bigotries and such that get in the way of good snap decisions.) It probably connects better with the question of designers or researchers using intuition than the question of making "intuitive" designs.
When we call something "intuitive," we are talking about a system making sense to people who have acquired skills but not the expert level skills that Gladwell reported on. In the case of "intuitive" design, it is the designers' task to make sure that other people can make snap decisions that turn out to be the right ones.
Gunnar
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