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The Design of Everyday Things Paperback – February 1, 1990

by Donald Norman (Author)

254 customer reviews

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A popular, entertaining, and insightful analysis of why some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
B & W photographs and illustrations throughout.

The Design of Everyday Things

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Product Details

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Doubleday Business (February 1, 1990)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385267746
ISBN-13: 978-0385267748
Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (254 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #355,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #160 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Industrial, Manufacturing & Operational Systems > Industrial Design
- #417 in Books > Business & Money > Marketing & Sales > Consumer Behavior
- #590 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Civil & Environmental > Environmental

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Customer Reviews

254

4.1 out of 5 stars

5 star		56%
4 star		18%
3 star		12%
2 star		8%
1 star		6%

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Top Customer Reviews

Excellent, a seminal work of design psychology

ByMichael F. Maddoxon August 4, 2000

Format: 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.

22 comments 99 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Design for everyday Human Behavior

ByJeffrey Sauroon September 12, 2002

Format: 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).

0Comment 96 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

The difference between designers and users

Byfrumiousbon May 9, 2000

Format: Paperback

Let me start by acknowledging that the book is not perfect. The end notes are annoying and Norman can have a tendancy to ramble and I guess that not everyone would find that charming. However, I assert that the strengths of the book more than make up for its weaknesses-- it is an important book, and one that anyone engaged in designing things for other people should read.
The central point is simple-- the needs of the user are different from the needs of the designer. The designer might want everyone's actions with his system to be precise, the user might need to have a "good enough" range of precision approximation. The designer wants to make the knobs the same so they look good together, the user wants to be able to tell quickly which knob applies to which function. It's a basic concept that can't (particularly on the Internet today) be repeated often enough.
Norman looks at the kinds of errors people make in usage and discusses how designers can plan to prevent these kind of errors. He discusses some of the basic things that users find valuable and walks the reader through some classic (and often funny, because so recognizable) design errors.
The writing is clean and (with the exception of the aforementioned rambling) very clear. Norman's voice is full of humor and a real passion for the subject, and that voice is conveyed very well by the book.

0Comment 65 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Universal Examples of Good (and Bad) Design

ByChris Harperon January 6, 2000

Format: 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.

0Comment 49 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Has drawbacks, but shines nonetheless

ByAnthony Boydon December 20, 1999

Format: Paperback

I agree with another reviewer who said that he found the material rather dated. It is.
However, I found some of that dated material fascinating -- the author's discussion of hypertext systems before the Web ever existed, the author's predictions/descriptions of handheld computers before the Palm organizers ever existed, etc.
Also, many of the "boring everyday examples" that another reviewer hated (such as doors, legos, stoves, faucets, and so on) were exactly what I needed. For example, a discussion of an ice cream menu helped me immensely with a corporate Web site I maintain. That's because the author went into detail about "decision trees" and how people handle lists of information.
In chapter 5, the discussion about the differences between "slips" and "mistakes" (which I thought were the same) will help me build better user interfaces, because I now know why people have problems with some interfaces, and how to resolve those problems.
I had also never heard of "forcing functions." I've used forcing functions, but I didn't know I was using them, and I didn't have the concepts clear enough to make them effective.
In summary, the book is dated but good. Couple this book with a book like "Information Architecture For The World Wide Web" or "Web Site Usability" and an average Web designer could become an excellent Web designer.

0Comment 19 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Five Stars

damn good book

Published 10 days ago by Stephen

Five Stars

Needed for a college course.

Published 12 days ago by Amazon Customer

Out of date

It was out of date. Technology is advancing faster than his book.

Published 1 month ago by Monica

Loved this book

Loved this book. Not a textbook but it does provide some evidence based ways of understanding design which can be applied to multiple areas of learning.Read more

Published 1 month ago by Snoozy11

Five Stars

great book for HCI

Published 3 months ago by emma

An author worth paying attention to

I still pull this thing out from time to time to read through it. It's a fascinating and valuable perspective on design, with a good number of intelligent and relevant points.

Published 4 months ago by Danny Shumway

Comprehensive and Approachable Introduction to Design (Review by Ryan Mease)

This is definitely the best comprehensive introduction/manifesto for "design thinking" that I have ever read.Read more

Published 5 months ago by Ryan Mease

Every Industrial Designer should own this book.

A staple for any industrial designer or design enthusiast.

Published 5 months ago by Daniel C Woods

Five Stars

Thanks

Published 6 months ago by Mumu

Five Stars

Yay don

Published 9 months ago by tigwid

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The Design of Everyday Things Paperback – February 1, 1990

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