andrew_balyk's review
5.0
Ця книга змінює погляд на світ. Чому одні речі прості у використанні, а інші складні ? І це не про якісь нові технології, а дійсно про дизайн звичних речей: плита для готування, холодильник, двері. Ми сприймаємо нормально моменти, коли ми помиляємося при відкриті дверей і замість штовхати, тянемо на себе або навпаки. Чи повинно це бути таким заплутаним ? Данальд Норман досліджує складні економічні та соціальні проблеми, які є в корені більшої частини поганого дизайну, що нас оточує.
Дуже рекомендую. Ця неймовірна книга обов’язкова для прочитання не тільки для всіх, хто працює в дизайні, а також для всіх, хто цікавиться, як працюють звичні для нас речі.
Дуже рекомендую. Ця неймовірна книга обов’язкова для прочитання не тільки для всіх, хто працює в дизайні, а також для всіх, хто цікавиться, як працюють звичні для нас речі.
stackx's review against another edition
3.0
Read for the Popsugar 2019 Challenge: A book you meant to read in 2018
Whew, I did it! I started this book back in November with the intention of finishing it in 2018, but wow was it difficult to get through. As other reviews have stated, for a book about design it was poorly designed. From long chapters to large chunks of text that featured a stream of consciousness way of writing, it was very hard to digest in a timely manner. However, having gone through it all, Norman did bring up many useful considerations that designers should have when working on products or going about daily life. I imagine that I will continue to use this book as a reference for years to come.
Whew, I did it! I started this book back in November with the intention of finishing it in 2018, but wow was it difficult to get through. As other reviews have stated, for a book about design it was poorly designed. From long chapters to large chunks of text that featured a stream of consciousness way of writing, it was very hard to digest in a timely manner. However, having gone through it all, Norman did bring up many useful considerations that designers should have when working on products or going about daily life. I imagine that I will continue to use this book as a reference for years to come.
nickfourtimes's review
3.0
1) "Would you like a pocket-size device that reminded you of each appointment and daily event? I would. I am waiting for the day when portable computers become small enough that I can keep one with me at all times. I will definitely put all my reminding burdens upon it. It has to be small. It has to be convenient to use. And it has to be relatively powerful, at least by today's standards. It has to have a full, standard typewriter keyboard and a reasonably large display. It needs good graphics, because that makes a tremendous difference in usability, and a lot of memory---a huge amount, actually. And it should be easy to hook up to the telephone; I need to connect it to my home and laboratory computers. Of course, it should be relatively inexpensive."
2) "Much of our knowledge is hidden beneath the survace of our minds, inaccessible to conscious inspection. We discover our own knowledge primarily through our actions. We can also find out by testing ourselves, by trying to retrieve examples from memory---self-generated examples. Think of an example, then think of another example. Find a story that explains them. Then we believe that story and call it the reason or explanation for our behavior. The problem is that the story changes dramatically depending upon what examples we select. And the examples we select depend upon a large set of factors, some under our control, some not."
3) "Most designers live in a world where the gulf of evaluation is infinite. True, we often know the product too well to envision how people will use it, yet we are separated from the end users by multiple layers of corporate bureaucracy, marketing, customer services, etc. [...] The best design ideas are often ruined by the development-manufacturing process that takes place when they leave the design studio."
4) "Design should:
* Make it easy to determine what actions are possible at any moment (make use of constraints).
* Make things visible, including the conceptual model of the system, the alternative actions, and the results of actions.
* Make it easy to evaluate the current state of the system.
* Follow natural mappings between intentions and the required actions; between actions and the resulting effect; and between the information that is visible and the interpretation of the system state.
In other words, make sure that (1) the user can figure out what to do, and (2) the user can tell what is going on."
2) "Much of our knowledge is hidden beneath the survace of our minds, inaccessible to conscious inspection. We discover our own knowledge primarily through our actions. We can also find out by testing ourselves, by trying to retrieve examples from memory---self-generated examples. Think of an example, then think of another example. Find a story that explains them. Then we believe that story and call it the reason or explanation for our behavior. The problem is that the story changes dramatically depending upon what examples we select. And the examples we select depend upon a large set of factors, some under our control, some not."
3) "Most designers live in a world where the gulf of evaluation is infinite. True, we often know the product too well to envision how people will use it, yet we are separated from the end users by multiple layers of corporate bureaucracy, marketing, customer services, etc. [...] The best design ideas are often ruined by the development-manufacturing process that takes place when they leave the design studio."
4) "Design should:
* Make it easy to determine what actions are possible at any moment (make use of constraints).
* Make things visible, including the conceptual model of the system, the alternative actions, and the results of actions.
* Make it easy to evaluate the current state of the system.
* Follow natural mappings between intentions and the required actions; between actions and the resulting effect; and between the information that is visible and the interpretation of the system state.
In other words, make sure that (1) the user can figure out what to do, and (2) the user can tell what is going on."
roll_n_read's review against another edition
4.0
This a required read for anyone who wants to design things for humans to use, but it was more like a textbook than I hoped when I picked it up. Lots of design vocabulary and lots of fairly common-sense principles. Don Norman is definitely one of the early design thinkers and this is where he talks about it all.
Big takeaways:
Signifiers and feedback are key in designing something. The user needs to be able to quickly understand what it can do (affordances) and get immediate and appropriate feedback when they do something.
Human Centered Design Process: all about observing to understand the problem, ideating solutions, rapid prototyping and testing. You should test with small groups at first so that you have lots of opportunity to refine and iterate. I especially liked the part about using the Wizard of Oz technique: manually handling the backend yourself and letting the user think you are automating it. I think that's often the best way to test whether something will gain traction. Doesn't work for everything, but sometimes it's very useful.
When there's something wrong, humans aren't using things wrong, designers are designing poorly.
Big takeaways:
Signifiers and feedback are key in designing something. The user needs to be able to quickly understand what it can do (affordances) and get immediate and appropriate feedback when they do something.
Human Centered Design Process: all about observing to understand the problem, ideating solutions, rapid prototyping and testing. You should test with small groups at first so that you have lots of opportunity to refine and iterate. I especially liked the part about using the Wizard of Oz technique: manually handling the backend yourself and letting the user think you are automating it. I think that's often the best way to test whether something will gain traction. Doesn't work for everything, but sometimes it's very useful.
When there's something wrong, humans aren't using things wrong, designers are designing poorly.
obtuseblues's review against another edition
3.0
ok this ended up being tough for me to get through in a serious way. so many times throughout this book i wanted to abandon it but i was too stubborn and thought i should keep going since i got past 77 pages. sometimes i wanted to pull my hair out from being bored while reading this but i can't hate on donald honestly. this is organizational/workplace psychology. he wrote very clearly and spelled everything out, revisiting concepts so they would stick. will say, some of this did feel like extraneous material because i felt like he was making similar points over and over again but it's fine. i did really like how he didn't assume anything which makes this a very accessible book. additionally, i thought it really was an interesting premise about blaming the design rather than people when it is difficult to understand and operate machines and appliances. about 3/4ths in i started to really like this book because donald started talking about the very human-ness of it all which is what i always love.
jackwwang's review against another edition
4.0
The first point Norman makes in this design manifesto is that in cases of most user misuse of an object, the fault lies not with the user but with the design of the object. As an individual who knows well how to direct anger at the unknown designer of a byzantine shower handle, "The Design of Everyday Things" does not offer paradigm-breaking insights. I would call it a formalism of common sense when it comes to how to think about the interaction of objects and people. This is not a fault, in fact I found it very useful to have vague notions in my head of sensible design unpacked and affirmed and explained in more technically precise terms.
It HAS inspired a sense of optimism about the potential to improve the world in applying some of these common design principles to more things and systems. In fact I was very excited at Norman's section on design of systems, in which he repeatedly compare modern commercial aviation against healthcare as a case study between a system that has performed with laudable consistency in safety due to sound design vs another system which vastly under performs potential in outcomes and safety due to resistance against the same principles. As someone who works in healthcare, this is another useful framing of vast problems of our healthcare system. A part of it is a design problem. Now the true challenge may not be having the right design, in fact I know that for a fact, the true challenge is in the details, in implementing these principles to the existent possible given entrenched interests, conservative culture of doctors, and the huge financial stakes.
This is an immensely readable work filled with interesting anecdotes, and at the very least upon a reading you should take away a useful vocabulary for how thing evaluate the design of things. Concepts like affordances, signifiers, constraints, discoverability, and feedback may not be original or groundbreaking, but they are useful articulations and reminders of important criteria for almost everything we interact with from our smartphones to shower handles to the modern healthcare system.
It HAS inspired a sense of optimism about the potential to improve the world in applying some of these common design principles to more things and systems. In fact I was very excited at Norman's section on design of systems, in which he repeatedly compare modern commercial aviation against healthcare as a case study between a system that has performed with laudable consistency in safety due to sound design vs another system which vastly under performs potential in outcomes and safety due to resistance against the same principles. As someone who works in healthcare, this is another useful framing of vast problems of our healthcare system. A part of it is a design problem. Now the true challenge may not be having the right design, in fact I know that for a fact, the true challenge is in the details, in implementing these principles to the existent possible given entrenched interests, conservative culture of doctors, and the huge financial stakes.
This is an immensely readable work filled with interesting anecdotes, and at the very least upon a reading you should take away a useful vocabulary for how thing evaluate the design of things. Concepts like affordances, signifiers, constraints, discoverability, and feedback may not be original or groundbreaking, but they are useful articulations and reminders of important criteria for almost everything we interact with from our smartphones to shower handles to the modern healthcare system.
mariawie's review against another edition
3.0
Jakoś nie zadowoliła mnie ta książka. Autor chyba nie mógł się zdecydować, czy to podręcznik dla projektanta czy ciekawa książka o wzornictwie dla przeciętnego „użytkownika”. Dostajemy coś pomiędzy i nie jest to spójne. Garść anegdot i dziwnych drzwiach i porad na co zwracać uwagę przy wyborze kraju jest przeplatane wydumanymi teoriami psychologicznymi (które nawet same w sobie są zrozumiałe i logiczne, ale podane przekombinowanym językiem z niepotrzebnymi schematami). Don Norman jest dobrym gawędziarzem i ze śmiechem czyta się historie o tym, jak nie umiał otworzyć drzwi czy zapalić światła jak należy. Dzięki temu lektura idzie nieźle przez pierwsze pół książki. Świetne są fragmenty o testowaniu produktów czy komisjach powypadkowych - rzeczywiście dają do myślenia „o co chodzi we wzornictwie i po co nam to”, ale też łatwiej dzięki nim rozumiemy, skąd się biorą źle zaprojektowane, pełne błędów produkty.
Niestety, im dalej, tym częściej Norman powtarza te same mądrości, które już czytaliśmy, coraz częściej wtrąca „oczywiście pisałem o tym już kiedyś tu i tam, oczywiście byłem w zespole szykującym taki produkt, ale wyprzedziliśmy czasy i jeszcze to nie był moment...” i sympatia, którą do niego czułam przez pierwsze 200 stron (facet ma ogromne doświadczenie i wiedzę i rzeczywiście patrzy na wzornictwo przemysłowe od strony człowieka jako użytkownika popełniającego błędy, co jest bardzo ważne) powoli stopniała. Drugą część książki czytało mi się trudniej i trudniej, ostatnie rozdziały już stawały się mętne i nie wnosiły dużo nowego. Szkoda.
Niestety, im dalej, tym częściej Norman powtarza te same mądrości, które już czytaliśmy, coraz częściej wtrąca „oczywiście pisałem o tym już kiedyś tu i tam, oczywiście byłem w zespole szykującym taki produkt, ale wyprzedziliśmy czasy i jeszcze to nie był moment...” i sympatia, którą do niego czułam przez pierwsze 200 stron (facet ma ogromne doświadczenie i wiedzę i rzeczywiście patrzy na wzornictwo przemysłowe od strony człowieka jako użytkownika popełniającego błędy, co jest bardzo ważne) powoli stopniała. Drugą część książki czytało mi się trudniej i trudniej, ostatnie rozdziały już stawały się mętne i nie wnosiły dużo nowego. Szkoda.
kakishort's review
4.0
The book that made me realize that if I can't figure something out, it is poorly designed.