Essays & Articles
Engineers and business executives are good at solving problems, but they seldom ask if it is the correct problem.
Human- and humanity-centered designers are trained to address the core, underlying factors, not just the symptoms.
Design must change from being unintentionally destructive to being intentionally constructive
From "Design for a Better World." last paragraph of Chapter 2 (page 13).
Failures? No — Learning Experiences
We scientists (and designers) learn from our failures. In fact, scientists seldom fail. Instead, they say “that didn’t work. Time to try something new.” I prefer never to talk of failure. Instead, I say “that...
Don Norman
Simplicity is in the mind, complexity is in the world.
If you understand something, then even things that are complex become simple. The complexity of the product must match the complexity of the task.
Don Norman in the book "Living with Complexity."
I learn more by being wrong than by being right
When people praise my ideas it is nice to hear, but I don’t learn anything. If people disagree, I learn. If they convince me, I am thankful and I change. If I believe I was...
Don Norman
If you can think of a clever solution in a few hours, assume many others have already done so
If you can think of a clever new concept or solution to an existing problem in a few minutes or hours, then you should recognize that many people all over the world, many who have...
Don Norman
Make it Simple? No! Make it Understandable.
Make it Simple? No! Make it Understandable. When people make things "simple" by minimizing controls, they make it much more difficult to work or to understand.
Simplicity is in the mind, Complexity is in the world. Why? Things you understand are simple.
It is the designer’s job to take complex requirements and make them so understandable and appropriate that they are pronounced “simple.”
Don Norman
The universe is made of stories, not atoms
A quote from the poet Muriel Rukeyzer’s book “The speed of darkness.” Why stories? Because they combine history and context, critical events and results, both good and bad, expected and unexpected all linked through causal...
Don Norman
You are being too logical, I often tell engineers and executives.
“You are being too logical,” I explain. “People are not logical. Logic is artificial. It was invented by mathematicians and philosophers. It is not how people think, which is why it is so difficult for...
Design for people the way they are, not for how you want them to be.
Activity-Centered Design: Why I like my Harmony Remote Control
DesignJuly 2003. Most remote controls for watching video and controlling a home theater are device-centered so the task of turning on all the right equipment and setting each to just the right setting is daunting. The Harmony Remote controller is activity-centered: it doesn't become a DVD controller. I...
November 17, 2008
7 minutes read
Affordance, Conventions and Design (Part 2)
DesignThe Psychology of Everyday Things (POET) was about "perceived affordance." If I ever were to revise POET, I would make a global change, replacing all instances of the word "affordance" with the phrase "perceived affordance." The designer cares more about what actions the user perceives to be poss...
November 17, 2008
13 minutes read
Commentary: Human Error and the Design of Computer Systems
DesignMany advances have been made in our understanding of the hardware and software of information processing systems, but one major gap remains: the inclusion of the human operator into the system analysis. The behavior of an information processing system is not a product of the design specifications...
November 17, 2008
10 minutes read
Banner Blindness, Human Cognition and Web Design
DesignBenway and Lane have studied "Banner Blindness" -- the fact that people tend to ignore those big, flashy, colorful banners at the top of web pages. This is pretty interesting stuff, for the entire reason they are so big and obnoxious is to attract attention, yet they fail. Evidently nobody ever s...
November 17, 2008
7 minutes read
Engineers and business executives are good at solving problems, but they seldom ask if it is the correct problem.
Human- and humanity-centered designers are trained to address the core, underlying factors, not just the symptoms.
Design must change from being unintentionally destructive to being intentionally constructive
From "Design for a Better World." last paragraph of Chapter 2 (page 13).
Failures? No — Learning Experiences
We scientists (and designers) learn from our failures. In fact, scientists seldom fail. Instead, they say “that didn’t work. Time to try something new.” I prefer never to talk of failure. Instead, I say “that...
Don Norman
Simplicity is in the mind, complexity is in the world.
If you understand something, then even things that are complex become simple. The complexity of the product must match the complexity of the task.
Don Norman in the book "Living with Complexity."
I learn more by being wrong than by being right
When people praise my ideas it is nice to hear, but I don’t learn anything. If people disagree, I learn. If they convince me, I am thankful and I change. If I believe I was...
Don Norman
If you can think of a clever solution in a few hours, assume many others have already done so
If you can think of a clever new concept or solution to an existing problem in a few minutes or hours, then you should recognize that many people all over the world, many who have...
Don Norman
Make it Simple? No! Make it Understandable.
Make it Simple? No! Make it Understandable. When people make things "simple" by minimizing controls, they make it much more difficult to work or to understand.
Simplicity is in the mind, Complexity is in the world. Why? Things you understand are simple.
It is the designer’s job to take complex requirements and make them so understandable and appropriate that they are pronounced “simple.”
Don Norman
The universe is made of stories, not atoms
A quote from the poet Muriel Rukeyzer’s book “The speed of darkness.” Why stories? Because they combine history and context, critical events and results, both good and bad, expected and unexpected all linked through causal...
Don Norman
You are being too logical, I often tell engineers and executives.
“You are being too logical,” I explain. “People are not logical. Logic is artificial. It was invented by mathematicians and philosophers. It is not how people think, which is why it is so difficult for...
Design for people the way they are, not for how you want them to be.
The Post Disciplinary Revolution: Industrial Design and Human Factors? Heal Yourselves
DesignOutline of an invited keynote address at the 1998 annual meeting of the Human Factors society. They hated it....
November 17, 2008
2 minutes read
Trapped in a Lufthansa Airline Seat
DesignI flew from Munich to Chicago in a brand new Lufthansa Airbus 340. (the 340-300 model, for those who keep track of such things). Ah, Lufthansa has gone to great lengths to improve their business class fittings. Indeed each seat comes with a 14 page manual. (Oops, 14 pages? That should be warning ...
November 17, 2008
9 minutes read
Usability Is Not a Luxury
DesignIf the customer can't find it, then the customer can't buy it. This simple statement explains why usability is the lifeline of e-commerce....
November 17, 2008
16 minutes read
A Fetish for Numbers: Hospital Care
DesignI've been spending a lot of time in hospitals recently. No, not as a patient, as an observer — following doctors and nurses on their grand rounds, watching patients get admitted, nurses doing shift changes, pharmacists filling prescriptions, and then watching nurses act...
November 17, 2008
7 minutes read
Waiting: A Necessary Part of Life
DesignInteraction design is about interfaces, which means it is about synchronizing the events of different systems, about memories, buffers, queues and waiting rooms. Waiting is an unavoidable component of interfaces, an unavoidable part of life. Just as dirt collects in crevices,...
November 17, 2008
6 minutes read
Affordances and Design
DesignIn the world of design, the term "affordance" has taken on a life far beyond the original meaning. It might help if we return to the original definition. Let me try to clarify the definition of the term and its many uses....
November 17, 2008
8 minutes read
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