Since we already talked about thoughtless acts, affordance, and constraints in class, the reading enhanced my understanding of these things in design thinking. In terms of “Thoughtless Acts”, firstly I like how she defines thoughtless acts — actions, prompted by our relationship with the world, that seem automatic or intuitive. It points out the core of the term. So when I did my assignment, I looked for the similar activities that the author described. What I also learned from this article is that thoughtless acts do not just limit to actions but also contains feelings. When people react to something unconsciously, the feeling is also a thoughtless act. The author also mentions something quite interesting is that she keeps a diary of things she is doing, such as using a washing machine. I think it is a good way to capture the thoughtless acts when people start paying attention to it. She at the end talks about the differences between a scientist and a designer, which I totally agree with. As a designer, we need to have empathy for things. When we design things, especially for human-centered things, we can’t be objective and totally logical about everything. What we have to do is to feel about the user and put ourselves in their shoes.
When we talk about affordances and constraints, we usually link it to us- human beings and our relationship to the rest of the world. In the reading, the author distinguishes the differences of perceived affordances between the physical world and screen-based world. This is something novel to me. People only have perceived affordances on their screen-based devices. That makes me realize the importance of UX design. UX designer has to anticipate users’ perceived affordances when they open the app. It becomes the user flow and the user journey that people usually talk about. From my perspective, the logical constraints are more like the guideline for the ux design. It helps the user to navigate the app or websites in their natural way.