One day, our landlady returned to the house to get some personal papers. She walked over to the old, metal filing cabinet and attempted to open the top drawer. It wouldn’t open. She pushed it forward and backward, right and left, up and down, without success. I offered to help. I wiggled the drawer. Then I twisted the front panel, pushed down hard, and banged the front with the palm of one hand. The cabinet drawer slid open. “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry. I am so bad at mechanical things.” No, she had it backward. It is the mechanical thing that should be apologizing, perhaps saying, “I’m sorry. I am so bad with people.” My landlady had two problems. First, although she had a clear goal (retrieve some personal papers) and even a plan for achieving that goal (open the top drawer of the filing cabinet, where those papers are kept), once that plan failed, she had no idea of what to do. But she also had a second problem: she thought the problem lay in her own lack of ability: she blamed herself, falsely.
What do You think about The Design Of Everyday Things?
