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<copyright>Copyright 2010</copyright>
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<item>
<title>Do Industrial Designers have a future?</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        An industrial Designer just asked (edited slightly):What is the industrial design's value in the future? With electronics&nbsp; getting smaller and smarter, it seems that we don't need industrial designer any more. Today it is interaction and service designers who are in the spotlight. What is your opinion?...
    		
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<category>ask</category>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:32:20 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Design Thinking: A Useful Myth</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        A powerful myth has arisen upon the land, a myth that permeates business, academia, and government. It is pervasive and persuasive. But although it is relatively harmless, it is false. The myth? That designers possess some mystical, creative thought process that places them above all others in their skills at creative, groundbreaking thought. This myth is nonsense, but like all myths, it has a certain ring of plausibility although lacking any evidence. Why should we perpetuate such nonsensical, erroneous thinking?...
    		
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/design_thinking_a_useful_myth.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/design_thinking_a_useful_myth.html</guid>
<category>Core77 columns</category>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:02:15 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Want Magazine Interview (with video)</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        Want magazine inteviewed me in my Palo Alto, California home. The very nice interview that resulted was posted on May 14, 2010 at http://wantmag.com/release/001/2010/05/don-norman/
    		
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/want_magazine_interview_with_video.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/want_magazine_interview_with_video.html</guid>
<category>Interviews</category>
<pubDate>Mon, 31 May 2010 11:22:53 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>GESTURAL INTERFACES: A STEP BACKWARDS IN USABILITY</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        Gestural interfaces are fun to use: gestures add a welcome feeling of activity to the otherwise joyless ones of pointing and clicking. The are truly a revolutionary mode of interaction. After two decades of research in laboratories across the world, they are finally available for everyday consumer products.

But the lack of consistency, inability to discover operations, coupled with the ease of accidentally triggering actions from which there is no recovery threatens the viability of these systems. 

We urgently need to return to our basics, developing usability guidelines for these systems that are based upon solid principles of interaction design, not on the whims of the company human interface guidelines and arbitrary ideas of developers.
    		
]]>
</description>
<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/gestural_interfaces_a_step_backwards_in_usability_6.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/gestural_interfaces_a_step_backwards_in_usability_6.html</guid>
<category>*Essays</category>
<pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2010 09:10:22 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Talk: Research Practice Gap &amp; 2 Kinds of innovation</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        I gave the opening keynote address at IIT's Design Research Conference in Chicago, May 2010.  In it, i combined two of the major themes I have long been working on. The video of that talk is now available.

The research-product gap. The design research community -- and all research communities, for that matter -- have little understanding, knowledge of, or even interest in the product side of companies. Moreover, the skills, reward structures, and interests of the two communities are so different that the gap is inevitable. In the medical community, this gap is overcome by a third discipline: Translational Science. I recommend we follow suite with a new discipline, Translational Engineering, that translates the language of research into the language of products, and vice-versa.

Two kinds of innovation. A very closely related confusion exists about innovation. Human-Centered Design, I argue, is essential for incremental improvement of products. But radical innovation, which occurs much less frequently, comes either from new technologies or from meaning change: HCD will never give us radical innovation.
    		
]]>
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/talk_research_practice_gap_2_kinds_of_innovation_1.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/talk_research_practice_gap_2_kinds_of_innovation_1.html</guid>
<category>*Essays</category>
<pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2010 08:38:07 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Design Research Conference &quot;Interview with Don Norman&quot;</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        I'm giving the opening keynote address at&nbsp; IIT's Institute of Design's Design Research Conference (Chicago, May 2010). The conference organizers interviewed me, which gave me a good chance to state my views on a number of contemporary issues in the design community.&nbsp; I cover numerous topics, but include the one that is most controversial and is the theme of my keynote: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to...
    		
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</description>
<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/design_research_conference_interview_with_don_norman.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/design_research_conference_interview_with_don_norman.html</guid>
<category>Interviews</category>
<pubDate>Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:18:27 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Design-driven innovation: changing the rules of competition by radically innovating what things mean</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        The more you believe that human-centered design is important, the more you need to read this book.

 

"Want to be radical? Forget user-centered innovation."  Hmm, sounds like something I would say, but in this case it isn't me, it is Roberto Verganti, author of "Design-driven innovation."  Verganti argues for a forgotten dimension in products: meaning. The traditional view is technology driven, with most innovation being small, incremental changes and occasional large, dramatic jumps. I have argued that human-centered design is useful for incremental changes, but not for the large, radical transformations (Norman, 2010). Verganti agrees, but adds a critically important new dimension to the argument: meaning.
    		
]]>
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/design-driven_innovation_changing_the_rules_of_competition_by_radically_innovating_what_things_mean.html</link>
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<category>Recommended Reading</category>
<pubDate>Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:53:01 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Research-Practice Gap</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        There is an immense gap between research and practice. There are  fundamental differences in the knowledge and skill sets required by those who conduct the research and those who attempt to translate those results into practical, reliable, and affordable form. Between research and practice a new, third discipline must be inserted, one that can translate between the abstractions of research and the practicalities of practice. We need a discipline of translational development. Translational developers are needed who can mine the insights of researchers and hone them into practical, reliable and useful results. Similarly translational developers must help translate the problems and concerns of practice into the clear, need-based statements that can drive researchers to develop new insights. Neither direction of translation is easy.
    		
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_research-practice_gap_1.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_research-practice_gap_1.html</guid>
<category>*Essays</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 03 Apr 2010 15:33:53 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Natural User Interfaces Are Not Natural</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        Gestural interaction is the new excitement in the halls of industry. Advances in the size, power, and cost of microprocessors, memory, cameras, and other sensing devices now make it possible to control by wipes and flicks, hand gestures, and body movements. A new world of interaction is here: The rulebooks and guidelines are being rewritten, or at least, such is the claim. And the new interactions even have a new marketing name: natural, as in "Natural User Interface." As usual, marketing rhetoric is ahead of reality.

All new technologies have their proper place. All new technologies will take a while for us to figure out the best manner of interaction as well as the standardization that removes one source of potential confusion. None of these systems is inherently more natural than the others. What we think of as natural is, to a large extent, learned. 
    		
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/natural_user_interfaces_are_not_natural.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/natural_user_interfaces_are_not_natural.html</guid>
<category>*Essays</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 03 Apr 2010 15:13:58 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>World&apos;s Most Influential Designers</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        Business Week has developed a list of what they call the World's&nbsp; 27 Most Influential Designers. I'm honored to be on the list, but I am also&nbsp; skeptical. Among other things, I am a design thinker, not a designer. I study, analyze, teach, and preach good design. I have worked with some of the world's best designers (some of whom are on the Business Week list), and I have indeed worked on numerous products. But not as a designer.Still, as...
    		
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/worlds_most_influential_designers.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/worlds_most_influential_designers.html</guid>
<category>Interviews</category>
<pubDate>Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:18:29 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Living with Complexity</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        Norman, D. A. (2010). Living with Complexity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (October 2010). Amazon. Translations: Japanese (Shinyo-sha). Table of Contents: Living With Complexity: Why complexity is necessary (PDF 385kb) Simplicity Is in the Mind How Simple Things Can Complicate Our Lives Social Signifiers Sociable Design Systems and Services The Design of Waits Managing Complexity: A Partnership The Challenge (updated June 5, 2010)...
    		
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/living_with_complexity.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/living_with_complexity.html</guid>
<category>Books</category>
<pubDate>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:27:51 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Two Books on Technology: &quot;The Nature of Technology&quot; &amp; &quot;Technology Matters&quot;</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        Technology is important to all of us, and it is critical to understand the role it plays in society. Society, culture, human behavior and technology lay a complex intertwined role together, each mutually influencing the other, so the evolution of each is affected by the evolution of the others. 
    		
]]>
</description>
<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/two_books_on_technology_the_nature_of_technology_technology_matters.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/two_books_on_technology_the_nature_of_technology_technology_matters.html</guid>
<category>Recommended Reading</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:36:34 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Lie Detectors</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        Many scientists and tinkerers are driven to discover a machine that will tell us when someone is lying. Unfortunately, many have claimed success, sufficiently so that the machine called a "lie detector" is in common use in police stations, government agencies, and even by some company employment agencies. The lack of scientific evidence for their accuracy is irrelevant. How does this happen? The story is a fascinating one: Ken Alder, a historian of science at Northwestern University tells it wonderfully. Highly recommended.
    		
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</description>
<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_lie_detectors.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_lie_detectors.html</guid>
<category>Recommended Reading</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:23:03 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>The measure of all things</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        Measurement is of critical importance to science, but as Ken Alder shows in this informative book, scientific activities cannot be separated from the personalities of those involved and the political events of the times. Alder is a historian of technology at Northwestern University who writes of mementoes scientific events with an easy to read simplicity that makes the story fascinating as well as a deep examination of the issues. This story tells of the quest to measure the circumference of the earth by a laborious effort of physical surveying by triangulation from visible site to visible site the from Northern France to Spain (and then basically multiplying by the appropriate factor). These events took place just prior to, during, and after the French revolution, which greatly interfered with the quest. So some fudging of data resulted and supposedly open data collection sets were kept secret. Lots of people got into the act, even Napoleon.
    		
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_measure_of_all_things.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_measure_of_all_things.html</guid>
<category>Recommended Reading</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:17:47 -0600</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Technology First, Needs Last</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
    
        I've come to a disconcerting conclusion: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs. I reached this conclusion through examination of a range of product innovations, most especially looking at those major conceptual breakthroughs that have had huge impact upon society as well as the more common, mundane small, continual improvements. Call one conceptual breakthrough, the other incremental. Although we would prefer to believe that conceptual breakthroughs occur because of a detailed consideration of human needs, especially fundamental but unspoken hidden needs so beloved by the design research community, the fact is that it simply doesn't happen. New conceptual breakthroughs are invariably driven by the development of new technologies The new technologies, in turn, inspire technologists to invent things, not sometimes because they themselves dream of having their capabilities, but many times simply because they can build them. In other words, grand conceptual inventions happen because technology has finally made them possible. Do people need them? That question is answered over the next several decades as the technology moves from technical demonstration, to product, to failure, or perhaps to slow acceptance in the commercial world where slowly, after considerable time, the products and applications are jointly evolve, and slowly the need develops. 
    		
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<link>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/technology_first_needs_last.html</link>
<guid>http://jnd.org/dn.mss/technology_first_needs_last.html</guid>
<category>*Essays</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:17:41 -0600</pubDate>
</item>


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