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.
101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions: The Art of Chindogu.
EssaysEvery Chindogu is an almost useless object, but not every almost useless object is a Chindogu. In order to transcend the realms of the merely almost useless, and join the ranks of the really almost...
November 17, 2008
1 minute read
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
CNN Designers challenged to include disabled
DesignI'm on a campaign to make assistive devices aesthetically delightful -- without impairing effectiveness and cost. Why are things such as canes, wheelchairs so ugly? I urge the skilled industrial designers of this world to revolutionize this arena. Perhaps the Industrial Design Society of America ...
November 17, 2008
4 minutes read
Things That Make Us Smart: Forbes article
EssaysForbes.com published a series of articles on "the 20 tools which have had the biggest impact on human civilization." They asked me to be on their advisory board. "Writing," I proclaimed. "The invention of writing is probably t...
November 17, 2008
4 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 Complexity of Everyday Life
EssaysMy home is littered with technologies that require conitnual attention. The problem is not just with today's favorite culprit -- the computer -- even my water filter requires change every 6 months. If every device only needed attention once a year, I would still be fixing, maintaining, or adjusti...
November 17, 2008
8 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
Automobile in HCI’s Future-2
DesignThe automobile industry is badly in need of guidance on human factors. Excellent people already work in the companies, but they suffer the problems faced within the consumer electronics and computer industries over the past few decades. This is an important arena, one where human-centered d...
November 17, 2008
6 minutes read
Chapter 17: Writing as Design, Design as Writing
EssaysA graduate student of mine, worrying about how to teach the principles of good design to undergraduates, suggested that we should use writing as an example. “We should teach them,” he said, “to think of...
November 17, 2008
22 minutes read
Signifiers, not affordances
DesignNote: This was published in ACM Interactions, volume 15, issue 6. It is time for a review. As time and technologies change, as we have moved from individual to group, social, and even cultural computing,...
November 17, 2008
8 minutes read
How To Write an Effective Manual
EssaysErin Massey of the Chicago Tribune newspaper (registration required) has written a nice article on the importa...
November 17, 2008
5 minutes read
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