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.
Dashboards for the Passengers
AutomobilesDrivers have dashboards. But what about the passengers, both in the front and rear seats? Why shouldn’t they too have dashboards? Today, we need places to store and plug in a wide variety of devices: music and video players, game machines and controllers, earphones, cellphones, and computer...
November 17, 2008
4 minutes read
Words Matter. Talk About People: Not Customers, Not Consumers, Not Users
EssaysWords matter. Psychologists depersonalize the people they study by calling them "subjects." We depersonalize the people we study by calling them "users." Both terms are derogatory. They take us away from our primary mission: to help people. Power to the people, I say, to repurpose an old phrase. ...
November 17, 2008
5 minutes read
Complexity again — Isn’t progress wonderful?
AutomobilesToday we can start the car with ease. But our intrepid automobile interior design teams have compensated for that simplicity. Now you have to learn how to open the doors, how to operate the temperature controls, how to change radio stations. We used to have to take classes to start the engine. To...
November 17, 2008
3 minutes read
Full-scale maps: Cartography dream realized
EssaysCambridge, UK. 1 April 2006. An old dream of cartographers has finally been realized through flat-panel displays and small, portable computational devices. For centuries, cartographers have dreamed of full-scale maps, that is, a map with a scale of 1:1, so that 1 Km. of the map would represent 1 ...
November 17, 2008
3 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.
Cockpit Complexity
AutomobilesThe automobile industry is doing a poor job of designing interior controls -- they are overly complex, difficult to understand, and therefore dangerous to use while driving. It is time to use human-centered design....
November 17, 2008
3 minutes read
Emotional Design: People and Things
Emotion & DesignProducts differ in their appeal on the three design dimensions, but so too do people and situations. Vegetable peelers are primarily bought for their behavior. Wall clocks might be bought for visceral appeal or reflective image. Some people are behavioral, some are visceral. Some reflective, cons...
November 17, 2008
11 minutes read
Interaction Design for Automobile Interiors
EssaysThe automobile industry is ignoring all the advances in user-interface design, and all the lessons about safety. Unlike home computers where bad design is simply a nuisance, with automobiles, bad design can be a major safety issue....
November 17, 2008
15 minutes read
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
DVD Menu Design: The Failures of Web Design Recreated Yet Again
EssaysIt is time to take DVD design as seriously as we do web design. The field needs some discipline: Some attention to the User Experience, concern about accessibility for those with less than perfect sight and hearing, and some standardization of control and display formats....
November 17, 2008
8 minutes read
In Defense of Cheating
EducationNo, I am not in favor of deception, trickery, fraud, or swindle. What I wish to change are the curriculum and examination practices of our school systems that insist on unaided work, arbitrary learning of irrelevant and uninteresting facts. I'd like to move them toward an emphasis on understandin...
November 17, 2008
10 minutes read
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