Her Code Got Humans On the Moon – and Invented Software
This Article talked about Margaret Hamilton, aspects of her life and her struggle as a working mother in a predominantly male industry. The most interesting part of the article, to me, was when Hamilton found an issue which made the simulator crash when she was “toying” with it. This reminded me of something that our professor encourages us to do with our project and it was said more than two times (which is I remember it)- and it is to stress test our projects. To work them over and over again until we find an error and fix it. We shouldn’t just assume that things are never going to happen, because they will and they might, at the wrong time, just like it happened with Jim Lovell.
Attractive Things Work Better
This reading’s whole focus was around the three levels of processing: Visceral, Behavioral and Reflective and how they affect human emotions- specifically when it comes to the design of products. The reading started off with a very funny story which made it clear that emotions when it comes to design is a “human” thing and not specific to ethnicity or race. Then it went on to talk about how people who are happier generally have no problem with minor inconveniences and will ignore them and be as positive about the situation as they can be. This means a human being under stress will not be able to think clearly if one thing goes wrong and are bound to crack/ break down and lose rationality. The example of doors at the cinema is very scary, but an important one. It goes back to thinking about the precaution in the design of buildings and items like the fire extinguisher. Making them functional so people can use them when under stress and fear is very important, but also making them look nice so the aesthetics don’t get ruined.