The Design of Future Things: Author of The Design of Everyday Things [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

by Donald A. Norman (Author)
Key Phrases: cantankerous kitchens, adaptive cruise control, intelligent devices, The Design of Future Things, Servants of Our Machines, The Psychology of People (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
From best-selling author Donald A. Norman, the long-awaited sequel to The Design of Everyday Things: a critical look at the new dawn of "smart" technology, from smooth-talking GPS units to cantankerous refrigerators.

Donald A. Norman, a popular design consultant to car manufacturers, computer companies, and other industrial and design outfits, has seen the future and is worried. In this long-awaited follow-up to The Design of Everyday Things, he points out what's going wrong with the wave of products just coming on the market and some that are on drawing boards everywhere--from "smart" cars and homes that seek to anticipate a user's every need, to the latest automatic navigational systems. Norman builds on this critique to offer a consumer-oriented theory of natural human-machine interaction that can be put into practice by the engineers and industrial designers of tomorrow's thinking machines. This is a consumer-oriented look at the perils and promise of the smart objects of the future, and a cautionary tale for designers of these objects--many of which are already in use or development.

About the Author
Donald A. Norman is Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University, a former "Apple Fellow," and a partner in the Nielsen Norman Group Consulting Firm, which consults with corporations on design. He is the author of a number of books on design, including Emotional Design and the best-selling The Design of Everyday Things. He lives in Northbrook, Illinois and Palo Alto, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; illustrated edition edition (October 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465002277
• ISBN-13: 978-0465002276
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #235,813 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #13 in

  Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Industrial, Manufacturing & Operational Systems > Ergonomics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent, not essential, November 21, 2007

By	Andrew Otwell "heyotwell" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Though the title's similar, this is no Design of Everyday Things. This book's very strongly focussed on design ideas for automobile automation, smart cruise control and the like, which gets a little tedious. Surprisingly, Norman also barely explores transportation possibilities beyond the car, and there's no discussion at all of sustainability, how cities and transportation habits are changing, or really any context at all. I guess Norman sees a one-man, one-exhaust pipe future for us.

In other ways, the book feels very much like the product of the last generation of attitudes about technology: there's basically no discussion of the web, or really anything about products that might have both online and physical manifestations. There's certainly some interesting stuff about how people adapt to increasing automation and lack of control in their cars or homes, but no essential insights nor much about the implications of generalized ambient computing and automation, something Adam Greenfield deals with very thoughtfully in Everyware.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay, but no Design of Everyday Things, December 17, 2007

By	Craig Ogg (Long Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Norman's book Design of Everyday Things had a profound effect both on the way I perceive the world and how I design. I have bought every consumer book he has written since then, and have always come away disappointed.

I am giving this book only 3 stars because I felt it became repetitive after a while, having covered the points adequately in the first half of the book. Not up to the quality I expect of Norman.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not Great, January 5, 2008

By	Rob S. (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews

An interesting read. Ranks in this order:

(1) Design of Everyday Things
(2) Emotional Design
(distant 3rd) Design of Future Things

It wasn't "bad" it simply wasn't as interesting as the others. Whereas at the end of (1) and (2) I felt enlightened - that Norman was breaking new ground. At the end of Future Things I felt he had spent much of the time repeating himself, that the book could have been half the length.

Good book, but I would skip.