Design of Everyday Things [IMPORT] (Paperback)

by Donald A. Norman (Author) "You would need an engineering degree from MIT to work this," someone once told me, shaking his head in puzzlement over his brand new digital..." (more)
Key Phrases: control deck, upper thread, chord keyboards, The Design of Everyday Things, The Design Challenge, The Psychopathology of Everyday Things (more...)

Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: MIT; Reprint edition (1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262640376
• ISBN-13: 978-0262640374
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (158 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,761,228 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, a seminal work of design psychology, August 4, 2000

By	Michael F. Maddox (Tallahassee, FL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Design of Everyday Things (Paperback)

Although this book is a product of the 1980's, its essential premise is not dated nor obsolete. Dr. Norman vividly illustrates the good and bad of design, and provides an excellent guidebook for the understanding of basic user-centric design in products, fixtures, software, and the everyday things that make up our world.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the design and creation of software, architecture, or consumer products. You will find some dated, quaint information within its pages, such as the descriptions of the "computer notepad" and hypertext (both of which came to fruition with Palm Computers and the Web), but, as a whole, the book is a collection of relevant, interesting material. It is an excellent starting point for the study of design.

For those interested in additional study on software and user interface design (programmers, such as I), I recommend Alan Cooper's books on user interface design, and ANY of Jakob Nielsen's books. In addition, the Edward Tufte trilogy on visual representations is extremely good, although not software-specific.

64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Design for everyday Human Behavior, September 12, 2002

By	Jeffrey Sauro (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Design of Everyday Things (Paperback)

This is one of the seminal works in the field of User Centered Design. Norman wrote this book well before the Windows operating system was as familiar as the Golden Arches--which only reinforces the idea that certain basic usability principles transcend all forms of objects--from glass doors to Windows Explorer.

Norman does a great job of describing why and how we successfully and unsuccessfully use everyday objects with relevant anecdotes. His stories are usually accompanied with lists of principles that explain good design and account for human behavior. For example, the fundamental principals of designing for people are to: Provide a good conceptual model, make controls visible and to constantly provide feedback to the user.

So how does one employ good user-centered design? Norman recapitulates his points at the end of the book by listing the seven UCD principles for transforming difficult tasks into easy ones:
1. Use both knowledge in the world and in the head

2. Simplify the structure of tasks
3. Make things visible
4. Get the mappings right
5. Exploit the powers of constraints-Natural & Artificial
6. Design for Error
7. When all else fails, standardize

It's mandatory reading for any usability software engineer but also an interesting and well written book for anyone who's ever pushed a "pull door" or scalded themselves in the shower (which is all of us).

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Universal Examples of Good (and Bad) Design, January 6, 2000

By	Chris Harper (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Design of Everyday Things (Paperback)

When I started my first job out of college I was given a copy of this book by my boss. Since then, I've had a chance to do GUI design for the web as well as client/server applications. This book has proven invaluable. It completely changed the way I thought about design and usability. The examples given show how everything can (and should) be made more usable... every time I turn on the wrong burner on my stove, or pull on a door I should be pushing I curse the designer who should have read this. The examples may not be specifically about computer user interface design, but the lessons learned are directly applicable.