The major dilemma in the movie is whether to intervene and try to stop the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the major characters, played by the actor Martin Sheen says, "I'm talking about the classic paradox of time. Imagine, for example, I go back in time and meet my own grandfather. Long before he got married, before he had children. And we have an argument, and I kill him. Now if that happens, how am I ever going to be born? And if I can never be born, how can I go back in history and meet my very own grandfather?" After further deliberation, the commanding officer of the carrier says, "If the United States falls under attack our job is to defend her in the past, present and future." Unfortunately, the carrier ends up returning to the future before they are able to stop the attack.
Here's the plot twist. One of the main characters is accidentally left behind in the past. I always wondered, what would it be like knowing all that you know now, in the past when no one else knows it? Think about it. You could invent things or come up with new discoveries, "predict" the future, and gamble and win on sports events (the character "Biff" does this in Back to the Future Part II). Just imagine what you could accomplish! What if?
Or not. As it turns out, all of us have a fairly rudimentary understanding of how everyday things work. I remember having a book as a child (I think it was a Richard Scarry book, but I'm not quite sure) that explained how everyday things worked, from sewing machines to toilets and bicycles to cars. However, if you asked me to diagram out or describe how some of these things work, I couldn't do it, even now. For example, try to draw (from memory) how the different parts of a bicycle fit together? Now go compare your drawing to either a real bicycle or a picture of one. How did you do?
If you didn't do so well, you are in great company. The University of Liverpool cognitive psychologist Rebecca Lawson studied this exact question in a study entitled, "The science of cycology: Failures to understand how everyday objects work." In her study, Lawson asked a group of students to fill in the pedals, chain, and extra frame for a bicycle (see the picture below). While the vast majority (96%) of subjects had learned how to ride a bike as children, only slightly over half (52%) owned a bicycle. Most of the subjects rarely, if ever, rode a bicycle.
Just to make sure that the inability to draw wasn't impacting the results, Lawson also asked individuals to select the correct position for the frame, pedals, and chain using a multiple-choice test (see picture below).
Over 40% of the subjects made at least one error in both the drawing (top picture) and multiple-choice test (bottom picture). For example, over one third of the subjects either drew or selected the picture with the chain running around both the front and back wheels of the bicycle. Several subjects drew or selected the picture with a frame connecting the front and back wheels (which would make turning the front wheel to steer impossible). One subject commented, "I can't believe I found it so difficult to remember what a bike frame looks like!!" Another subject sighed and said, "I think I know less than I thought..." Lawson repeated the above test on individuals who regularly rode their bicycles (either to work or for leisure activity), and, while the results were much better, they weren't perfect. Even self-identified experts often made mistakes in drawing or selecting the correct position for the extra frame, chain, and pedals.
Lawson and other investigators suggest that the general knowledge of how everyday things work is not limited to bicycles. And while this appears to be true, the cognitive psychologist Frank Keil has argued that this may be beneficial in the long run. We have a limited, superficial understanding of everyday objects so that we can be more efficient in making accurate, causal predictions about the world around us. In other words, our capacity to store information, such as how a bicycle really works, in our memory is limited. Why waste valuable memory space on information that is not critical to our everyday lives? We can still ride a bicycle without necessarily fully understanding how it works.
Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things writes about how people don't understand how thermostats work. If someone wants to quickly heat up a room, he or she often turns the thermostat all the way up (which isn't how the thermostat works at all). He argues for better user-centered design, "In the case of the thermostat, the design gives absolutely no hint as to the correct answer. In the absence of external information, people are free to let their imaginations run free."
Norman goes on to talk about the doors that people use to enter and exit buildings - I am sure you have seen people push a door when it needs to be pulled and vice versa. Norman again argues, "When a device as simple as a door has to come with an instruction manual - even a one-word manual - then it is a failure, poorly designed.
So, what are the takeaways here? Perhaps most importantly, if we ever do travel back in time, we should bring a manual on how everyday objects work. Seriously though, when we think about how to design commonly used processes and/or equipment, we need to remember that individuals won't necessarily understand or comprehend how they work. What seems straightforward may not be completely intuitive to others. We would do well to remember that.
Just as important, we should realize that at times, we should just get our hands dirty and look at things - take them apart, put them back together. I am talking in both a literal sense (taking apart physical objects so that we can better learn and understand how they work) as well as a metaphorical one (seeing how the processes and procedures that we design work in real-world situations). As Carl Jung said, "Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain."
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