Customer Reviews

The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex, and Information Appliances Are the Solution

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His basic argument in this book is that the computer industry has matured to the point where it can no longer just cater to the early-adopter technologists and must appeal to the masses to continue growth. Unfortunately, the industry doesn't know how to do this and continues to deliver technology for technology's sake, leading to fat computers and technology that aren't that useful or appealing to most people, and are beginning to exhaust the technologists too. He introduces some recent, but standard models of technology adoption for discussing the problems, customer-centered design in cross-disciplinary teams (marketing, engineering, and user experience) for designing products that transcend the problems (explicitly discussing Contextual Design a few times), and "information appliances," multitudes of small, task-focused technology products that will replace our big, cumbersome, general-purpose (but not great at any) PCs.

Norman's forte is definitely cognitive and experimental psychology in product design, and not being a technological or product development process visionary. I found very little new or interesting content in the book, and I don't think he articulated even some of the derived ideas very well. The whole book could have been condensed into a long magazine article. His prose is wordy and redundant, and the book is regrettfully lacking in many of the detailed case studies and examples he's used in previous books to elucidate his ideas. I want the idiosyncratic and outspoken psychologist professor back, such as he was in The Design of Everyday Things, or the powerful academic argument of Things That Make Us Smart. His short stint as a VP of HPs "Information Appliances" division, and his earlier work at Apple, was not enough to give him a deep understanding or insight into the problems of the current technology-product market.

He does make some good book recommendations, however, and I'll add my favorite articulation of the problem, that I think articulate the problem and potential solutions much better:

C. M. Christensen, _The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail_, 1997. G. A. Moore, _Crossing The Chasm: Marketingand Selling High-Tech Goods to Mainstream Customers_, 1991. T. K. Landauer, _The Trouble With Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity_, 1995.

I'm a fan of Donald Norman's work so when I finally had a
chance to pick up "The Invisible Computer" I had high hopes.
Unfortunately, this work didn't provide the same insight and
focus as his previous books such as "The Design of Everyday
Things".

Throughout the work Norman draws upon "Crossing the Chasm"
and "Inside the Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon
Valley's Cutting Edge" [both by Geoffrey Moore]. Also
heavily emphasized are the ideas put forth by "The

Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms
to Fail." All of these books are interesting--but I wanted
something from Norman himself.

Chapter 7, "Being Analog", was more in line with what I had
come to expect from Norman. He ends this chapter with this:
"Alas, most of today's machines, especially the computer,
force people to use them on their own terms, terms that are
antithetical to the way people work and think. The result is
frustration, an increase in the rate of error (usually
blamed on the user--human error--instead of on faulty
design), and a general turning away from technology. Will
the interaction between people and machines be done
correctly in the future? Might schools of computer science
start teaching the human-centered approach that is necessary
to reverse the trend? I don't see why not." That's what I'm
looking for! If only the rest of the book had followed that
passion.

Instead focusing on human factors and man-machine

interface issues, Norman wanders discussing substitutable
goods vs. nonsubstitutable goods, a rehash of why software
is hard to write (and the mythical man month), and even some
embarrassing admissions now that he'd spent some time outside
academia and worked a bit in industry: "Time, or rather the
lack of it, I was starting to learn, is one of the greatest
barriers to quality". As my young nieces would say to me,
"duh!"

Finally, although written in the late 1990's with the

paperback edition published in 1998, I found the text to
already be a bit dated. You don't realize how quickly the
computer industry moves until you find a book frozen in time
like this one.

My recommendation is to read Norman's other works and the
works he recommends here (Crossing the Chasm, Inside the
Tornado, and Innovator's Dilemma). Finally, I recommend
"Machine Beauty" by David Gelernter. It provides more
passion and keener insights than this work--and is generally
more fun to read!

The book is a rallying cry for the technology industry, a call to arms for the geek troops. Sure, the writing is like a beta version that the publisher decided to go live with, but the essential concepts and emotion come through loud and clear.

Norman builds a solid foundation for his arguments, citing historical cases and several written works. The book was a fun, easy read. When I finished Invisible Computer, I felt the same sort of illumination and clarity that came after reading Alan Cooper's About Face.

His vision of ubiquitous information appliances and devices will undoubtedly come true in ways none of us can imagine. But what will become of the PC? Will I have 100 individual devices replacing the 100 software programs I have installed? Hardly. But the book doesn't really address the ongoing need for a general purpose computer.

In the end, I would recommend this book to anyone involved in technology. It definitely altered my personal perception of where tech products have come from and where they are headed. Time will tell if his ideas are strong enough to truly help shape the future of software and product development.

The content strives to support the design of information appliances due to the complexity of the computer coupled with creeping featurism. Human centered design must be used to overcome the increasing complexity.

Chapters 7 (Being Analog) and 8 (Why is Everything So Difficult to Use) are reminiscent of Things that Make Us Smart and The Design of Everyday Things also by Norman.

Chapters 9 and 10 focus on human centered development by defining it as a process and then describing 'immutable principles' that should apply. Six disciplines of user experience are identified.

As I progressed through the book, I had to continually return to the cover and back pages, rereading the title and description to remind myself of what the book is about. Read the two referenced books first!

I have greatly enjoyed and valued some of the author's previous work and ordered multiple copies of "The Invisible Computer" as soon as I heard about it in order to share with my colleagues. After reading the book twice (I was certain I had missed something the first time) I was disappointed in the quality of the arguments presented and lack of substance. The basic tenet - that computer should be submerged into our environment and serve highly specialized functions - cannot be disputed. I found the discussion of substitutable and non-substitutable items interesting and the most useful portion of the text.

The historical case studies are fascinating -- but the best chapter, in my opinion, has little to do with "information appliances" and much to do with the nature of monopoly systems.

I'm educated as an economist and found Norman's descriptions of an infrastructure market (historically the 'natural' monopoly market of power and telephone companies) a compelling read -- and a must read for anyone following the DOJ-MSFT trial.

While I agree with his premise that the machines need to become 'simple to use' -- I'm still having trouble seeing lots of individual "appliances." However, I think the iMac may have captured some of Norman's philosophies.

This book covers in detail the role technology has pervasively interrupted our lives by intruding into everyday living. His major point is that we should have small, independent devices that do one task and one task well, rather than a general-purpose computer to do many tasks. Personally as a technologist I disagree with his major assumptions and points and found the book and some of it's major themes troubling.

An example is the way children interact with computers compared to senior citizens. When a child grows up with something is becomes natural. Most children who have access to a computer at an early stage find it as natural as using a video/DVD player, television or CD player. If the technology is introduced at an early stage it become part of the natural language of the child. Normal disagrees with this, and I think although he is a well researched observer that this is one failing of the book.

It wasn't until I reached the last quarter of the book that I could start to agree with his ideas and see the point he was trying to make. That is that some devices work as an appliance. The examples of the TiVo (which we don't have here in Australia) seem best to fit the example. They do one thing, and do it well. Network Computers are the other example, where the complexity of the device is hidden from the user (although he still feels uncomfortable with NC's as they are still "computers".)

Norman's style of writing made me think I had skipped back a few pages every now and then as he often will repeat himself in greater detail over points he thinks are important.

If you're a technologist you should read it. But don't take it as gospel. Although Normal is correct in some of his point, you need to use your own experience and environment to understand the points he is trying to make, rather than accepting them carte blanch.

Don Norman makes his point early on Chapter two about the current situation of computer technologies and what companies have done and should do about it. His examples are sometimes useful, but he didn't need to write 300 pages to explain something other people have said before and he could have reaffirmed in a long article.

Donald Norman seems to have taken up a position like that of Eric S. Raymond of Open Source, but in usability. This is a business-argument pitch for information appliances. It draws very heavily in its early chapters from the book "Inside the Tornado", I think by Moore.Inside the Tornado was a book adopted as Marketing Bible by my previous employer, an entrepreneurial venture in the digital imaging industry that may yet sink, but not because of the book. Inside the Tornado is right, but if you've absorbed it, you'll be irritated with the first half of this book.For people who read and appreciated his earlier books and are looking for interesting theoretical or experimental stuff on or near the topic of cognitive science will be disappointed. Don't buy this book for that reason.If you have only a weak grasp of information appliances, what they are, and why they're good, you will want to read this book.I wish someone else wrote this book, though.

Much of what Norman says in "The Invisible Computer" needs to be said, and based on his earlier work, I expected it to be said clearly. Unfortunately, this book appears to be a bunch of lectures put into book form with insufficent effort spent to remove overlaps between chapters.

Much of the history is fascinating, particularly the idea of "peripherals" for electric motors around 1910, and the technological/business battles about phonograph standards.

Overall an interesting book, but I expected better writing from Norman.