A review by nickfourtimes
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
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."