Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure our which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this fascinating, ingenious—even liberating—book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology.The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization. The book presents examples aplenty—among them, the VCR, computer, and office telephone, all models of how not to design for people.But good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time. But the designer must care.The author is a world-famous psychologist and pioneer in the application of cognitive science. His aim is to raise the consciousness of both consumers and designers to the delights of products that are easy to use and understand.
Don Norman is a voyeur, always watching, always on the lookout for some common-day occurrence that everyone else takes for granted but that when examined, yields insight into the human condition. (If you are rushing to catch a train, how do you know if you got to the station on time? Empty platform? You probably are too late. People milling about, looking at their watches,peering down the tracks? Probably OK. Who needs technology when people are so informative, even if as an accidental byproduct of their activities.
Business Week has named him one of "the world's most influential designers," the influence from his books, essasys, courses and students, lectures, and consulting.
He takes special delight in the interaction of people and technology. "Turn signals are the facial expressions of automobiles" is the title of his book of essays, which illustrates his philosophy. (Not one of his most popular books, alas. Too quirky even for fans.)
He keeps complaining that he is too busy, as he adds on even more activities. He likes to say that he spends half his time as co-director of Northwestern University's MMM program, the dual degree MBA + Engineering program that emphasizes design and operations, half with the Nielsen Norman group, half writing, and the remaining half serving on advisory boards, such as the editorial advisory board of Encyclopedia Britannica and the Industrial Design Department of Korea's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he is Distinguished Visiting Professor.
He is a fellow of many organizations and former lots of things, including VP at Apple Computer and even President of a startup. He has honorary degrees from the University of Padova (Italy) and the Technical University Delft (the Netherlands). He was awarded the Benjamin Franklin medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. He is known for his books "The Design of Everyday Things," "Emotional Design," and "The Design of Future Things," but he is most proud of his students,, now all over the world, who put into practice his human-centered design philosophy. He is now finishing the book "Sociable Design: How to Manage Complexity," to be published by MIT Press in Fall 2010. He lives at www.jnd.org, where you can find chapters from his books and loads of essays.
