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The Design of Everyday Things

Donald A. Norman

4.17 · Rating details · 24,824 ratings · 1,850 reviews

Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this ingenious—even liberating—book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and ...more

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Paperback, Revised and Expanded Edition, 347 pages

Published November 5th 2013 by Basic Books (first published 1988)

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Mar 21, 2008 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

After reading this you will never look at any man-made object the same. You will question everything from doors to tea kettles to the most sophisticated computer program. The next time you fumble with an answering machine, web page, or light switch you will think back to the lessons from this book. It is almost liberating once you can see beyond the design of everyday things.

I highly recommend this book for anyone. You absolutely must read it if you will ever be in a position to create something ...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Philip Mcallister rated it it was ok · review of another edition

For a book that a lot of people rave about as being a 'bible of usability', I have to say it was one of the worst written and designed books I have ever been unfortunate enough to read.

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Jan 22, 2015 Jessica E rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Too general to be valuable. Too many sentences like this: "Each discipline has a different perspective of the relative importance of the many factors that make up a product."

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Jun 18, 2010 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2non-fiction, 1paper, science

This took me FOREVER to read - but it isn't the book's fault. It was me just picking it up at odd moments & it giving me a lot to think about each time. I don't design every day things, so had absolutely no need to read this book, but found it extremely interesting. If you have any part in designing anything, you MUST read this book.

Norman points out the obvious - things I took for granted - & made me think about them in an entirely new light. He breaks down the simplest devices into ...more

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Jul 23, 2017 Rod Hilton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

Whenever programmers ask other programmers for book suggestions, there's always some smartass that says something like "The Art of War" because of blah blah blah about corporate politics. Hoo boy you're clever, you suggested a non-programming book, way to not play by the rules. You really march to the beat of your own drum there, slick.

Similarly, I constantly see "The Design of Everyday Things" suggested in these kinds of conversations. I think it's supposed to give engineers great insights into ...more

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Apr 15, 2008 Jessica added it · review of another edition

Shelves: partly-read

Couldn't get in to it. Maybe I'll try again at a different time. On a side note, I found it odd that a book about user-centered design had line-broken right-justified headings and baffling use of italics.

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Apr 15, 2011 Nick Black rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommended to Nick by: Jeff Garzik

Shelves: read-multiple-times

Jeff Garzik gave me a copy of this back when he was building the Linux network stack in Home Park; I'd seen it praised by a few other people by that time as well (via the GT newsgroups, most likely). I was underwhelmed -- there were a few good case analyses (the oven UI I recall being particularly effective), but very little usable, general principles came out of the read. I went back in 2006, thinking I'd perhaps missed something, but didn't find much more. then again, i'm probably not the ...more

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Jan 02, 2017 Tam rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fic

This book is more for knowledge than for enjoyment. The writing is rather dry and textbook-like with many abstract/theoretical concepts and ideas. I feel like taking a short course in design, which is still quite helpful. Nevertheless, I was expecting more of "smart" designs, more fun and strange and inspiring stories, but Norman isn't there to entertain but to educate and so there are examples mostly to illustrate concepts and processes. Naturally I was a bit disappointed, but still in general ...more

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Jul 05, 2007 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Have you ever stood in front of a door, or a microwave, absolutely flummoxed, because the damned thing gave you no clue whatsoever how to open it. If so (even, I venture to think, if not), you will enjoy this book. In clear, coruscating prose he exposes the miserable flaws in the design of everyday objects which conspire to make our lives less convenient, more miserable, and sometimes more dangerous.

The book is not just an exposé of the appalling laziness and hostility to consumers that is ...more

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Dec 22, 2017 Joe rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club

The Design of Everyday Things (DOET) is the story of doors, faucets and keyboards; it's the tale of rangetops and refrigerators. Donald Norman beckons the reader to look at the common objects they deal with every day in new and methodical ways. And he offers this central question; what makes an object well-designed as opposed to poorly-designed?

But on the question of design DOET, itself an everyday object, rates poorly. Norman's discussion of individual items proves inconsistent and rarely The Design of Everyday Things (DOET) is the story of doors, faucets and keyboards; it's the tale of rangetops and refrigerators. Donald Norman beckons the reader to look at the common objects they deal with every day in new and methodical ways. And he offers this central question; what makes an object well-designed as opposed to poorly-designed?

But on the question of design DOET, itself an everyday object, rates poorly. Norman's discussion of individual items proves inconsistent and rarely systematic; sometimes he includes examples of both good and bad design (such as when he analyzes doors), but oftentimes he only mentions the bad (such as when he talks about office phone systems.) He rarely offers suggestions for superior designs and organizes everything by psychological concepts that often prove vague or arcane; section headings include 'Memory is Knowledge in the Head' and 'Using Sound for Visibility.'

Even more fundamentally, explanatory pictures rarely occupy the same page as the text that references them, forcing the reader to page back and forth. That the typesetting for his book is so awkward feels especially glaring as that's the sort of basic design flaw DOET seeks to expose.

To Norman's credit, he shows passion for the subject and writes engagingly when he isn't listing psychological vocabulary words. And the subject of design is fascinating; relevant to everyone, applicable to all areas of life and endlessly detailed. And Norman routinely finds interesting digressions; applying design principles to Legos or charting every plausible game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

And I found myself agreeing with Norman's core philosophy. He argues that function should supersede features and usability is more important than aesthetics. He also takes the stance that if you can't figure out a gadget, it probably isn't your fault and he goes into detail about how common this sort of confusion is.

Norman takes a decidedly pro-humanity outlook in a book all about objects; just one more irony. After all, DOET is a poorly-designed study of design regarding a mundane subject that fascinates.

Edited 2/19/2019 ...more

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Jul 10, 2010 Traveller rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Excellent piece of non-fiction. This book is a prescribed textbook for a course on computer interface design that I'm doing.

Once I really started reading it, I almost couldn't put it down - it was so interesting that it almost read like fiction - none of the dry dust usually found in conventional textbooks.

Very well and humorously presented, and a must for engineers, designers, manufacturers and inventors everywhere!

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Jan 21, 2019 David Bjelland rated it really liked it

Shelves: soc-psych-anthro, built-environment

BLUF: A good-to-great primer on human-centered design, albeit one that's lighter on examples and political introspection than I'd hoped for.

Longer take:
I'll admit: since first hearing about "Norman doors" in college and then seeing the hilarious "second degree burn kettle" on the cover, I'd built up the idea in my head of this book being some sort of righteous crusade against poorly-designed objects. I looked forward to hours of chuckling along as he gave instances of abominably unusable BLUF: A good-to-great primer on human-centered design, albeit one that's lighter on examples and political introspection than I'd hoped for.

Longer take:
I'll admit: since first hearing about "Norman doors" in college and then seeing the hilarious "second degree burn kettle" on the cover, I'd built up the idea in my head of this book being some sort of righteous crusade against poorly-designed objects. I looked forward to hours of chuckling along as he gave instances of abominably unusable products, starting from the accidental and working his way towards the truly negligent or coercive, skewering each for our edification; by explaining the shortcomings of each example and walking through the process of improving it (if possible), the reader would come to a bottom-up understanding of the principles of HCD.

Fortunately, there are plenty of click-baity listicles to get my design schadenfreude fix, because this is definitely not that book.

First of all, Norman is only incidentally concerned with "objects" per se - the first chapter or two uses a fair number of them to ground the ideas of mappings and physical constraints, but the book as a whole is mostly concerned with the more intangible disciplines of user interface and process design. This actual makes for a more mind-expanding book, as the reader discovers the underlying analogy between the building blocks of physical and non-physical forms of design.

Secondly, contrary to the polemic I was expecting, Norman's voice is actually pretty neutral and empathetic throughout. Rather than casting blame, he investigates failures of design as a whole the same way he's investigated actual accidents: by seeking root causes in broken feedback loops and failures to account for human nature.

Despite a writing style that I'd call bland and curt (I think in the interest of sound neutral and accessible?), I blew through the first five chapters - solid material with exciting implications! However, DOET started to drag for me in the last two chapters ("Design Thinking" and "Design in the World of Business"), which felt less like popular non-fiction and more like a corporate self-help manual. Maybe it's just a problem of audience? The practical workplace material is probably interesting for current-or-aspiring designers themselves, but IMHO, it has far less to offer the casual reader. Worse, it brought to the foreground some ethical issues that the book had until then steered clear of, but without providing any satisfactory answers for.

As far as I can tell, DOET would like its readers to think that its central principles are apolitical: the reader is encouraged to pursue designs that are usable for a wide variety of users based on their size, ability level, and culture, but this is still viewed through the functional lens of creating the most effective products. What does "effective" mean though? I don't want to assume the worst in the author, but the text itself does little to contradict the idea that "effectiveness" is no more and no less than a means towards profitability. Case in point: it wasn't until Norman briefly touched on (and conspicuously failed to condemn) the strategy of planned obsolescence that it occurred to me just how limited in scope his idea of "human"-centered design really is.

Wouldn't a design philosophy that holistically factored in human needs and psychology favor durable, recyclable products with replaceable components rather than products we're forced to discard every year or two, polluting our environment for generations? Wouldn't a human-centered design philosophy content itself with products that served actual human needs, rather than preying on our insecurities to create new ones?

It's interesting to me that Norman used to be an executive at Apple, a company infamous for perfecting the art of planned obsolescence - does he fail to condemn the practice here because he doesn't want to burn any bridges, or because he and Apple are actually in alignment and he sees nothing wrong with it? I'd guess it's not too hard to find out where he stands if you really wanted to know, but within the scope of this book, his failure to take a stance on any political question related to design presents the reader with an unsavory question:

Are "humans" supposed to be the ultimate beneficiaries of Norman's "human-centered design", or are we just a demographic to be focus-grouped as a means of maximizing market penetration?

The Design of Everyday Things leaves it to other books to answer that question, apparently. ...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Kater Cheek rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I got this as an audiobook, based on the fact that it falls within my usual taste for non fiction and because it's been referred to by many other books. In many ways, this is a classic book that inspired many people to think more seriously about design. At least, that's my impression, garnered from the unreasonably long introduction in which the author talks about how great and important his book is.

Confession time: I didn't finish the book. I got down to about the last hour and ten minutes and I got this as an audiobook, based on the fact that it falls within my usual taste for non fiction and because it's been referred to by many other books. In many ways, this is a classic book that inspired many people to think more seriously about design. At least, that's my impression, garnered from the unreasonably long introduction in which the author talks about how great and important his book is.

Confession time: I didn't finish the book. I got down to about the last hour and ten minutes and finally had enough. This book is boring. I spent most of my time listening to it trying to figure out why it was so boring. I like design. I like sociology. I like pop science. I like non-fiction. Why did this book make me drift off and not know what he'd said for ten to twenty minute chunks? I'm not exactly sure, but I've got some ideas.

First of all, the book references illustrations. Yes. In an audiobook. I went to my audible account to delete it, and saw that the pdf of the illustrations had thoughtfully been included in the download. So I looked at the illustrations, but they still weren't that great. They clarified some things that I didn't understand, but they didn't add a tremendous amount to the understanding of the text. If the book had been littered with illustrations, with "here's good" next to "here's bad", it might have helped, but then it wouldn't have been a good audiobook.

Secondly, the book had too much abstract descriptions and made-up words.Remember when you were in elementary school and they'd have a textbook that talked about, say, the natural resources of a country, and they'd have vocabulary words in bold that you had to remember for the test? But they were artificial, like "grasslands" meant something different from "savanna" which was different from "prairie" This book kinda did that, at least in the first chapters, like he was structuring this as a textbook to teach you principles of good design. His principles sort of made sense, but they had too few examples to elucidate them, and what anecdotes and examples he included often were completely off-topic.

The middle to second half of the book got especially off-topic, degenerating at times into a rant about how hard VCRs are to program and DOS computers are to use. Which brings me to my third point: this book is really dated. In some ways it's cool; he describes a smart phone decades before one existed. In other ways, it's not really relevant. He talks about frustrating faucets, for example, he derides motion-detecting faucets as difficult to use because they aren't obvious. Most people these days use motion-detecting faucets just fine. He talks about how awful computers are, but he's talking about a computer that anyone under the age of 25 has never seen. Even if it weren't for the overly-abstract, poorly described principles he wants people to learn from, the age of his observations makes this book not relevant.

I don't recommend this book. It's an interesting topic, but this book is poorly written and too dated to be useful. ...more

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Jun 06, 2010 Laura rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, abandoned

This was written in a decade before authors learned how to write stimulating non-fiction.

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Sep 18, 2011 Stringy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: design-and-development

A classic for a reason. The examples are dated, but if you still remember rotary dial telephones (maybe over 30 years of age?) you'll be fine with them. Since Norman more or less predicts iPhones and iPads in this book, I'd love to read an update chapter from him in the next edition.

The principles are still accurate and useful, and Norman makes a solid case for why my inability to get through doorways safely is actually the fault of the manufacturers. People using products are busy, they have ...more

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Apr 29, 2014 Neven rated it really liked it · review of another edition

DoeT isn't the world's best written book—Norman's style is too often kvetchy-casual, sounding more like a modern-day ranty blog post than a classic of academic design writing.

But that is only one way in which this book is ahead of its time. The observations and recommendations regarding usable design here hold to extremely well 25 years later; even though Norman's examples concern ancient phone systems and slide projectors, it all translates perfectly well to virtual touchscreen UIs of today. ...more

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Aug 10, 2017 Brian Rosenblat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: product-management

(5.0)

Can't believe I hadn't read this before.

There's a lot of wisdom in this book. I'd highly recommend for anyone pursuing a career in design, product, marketing, or tech, or anyone who just wants to build great products.

Internalize these ideas and put them into practice and you will create better products that will impact people's lives.

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Aug 14, 2011 Yevgeniy Brikman rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book has several very important ideas:

* Even if you aren't professional designer, you still use design everywhere in your life, including how you design your house, your resume, a report, some code, etc.

* Design is all about focusing on people's needs and abilities. You may think you know what those are by the virtue of being a human, but you don't, as most human actions are unconscious. Therefore, to be a good designer, you need to learn some psychology.

* Good design is all about finding ...more

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Feb 13, 2016 Katie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I think there is really only one gif to sum this book up properly:

This book, although the examples are dated (as listed in nearly every review), is quite fabulous. The original title was actually "The Psychology of Everyday Things" which was less friendly to the average person, but quite accurate.

Like I said in a previous update, I feel like this book should be required reading for any type of designer, but somehow I had missed it until now. Great detail about design methodologies, constraints, and psychology - but not too much to be overwhelming (in my opinion). The examples, while dated, were still quite excellent (assuming you were born pre-2000s but hey you can google things). Since I listened to the audiobook (on Hoopla) I missed out on the diagrams which is disappointing, so I think I recommend reading the actual book. (However, I quite enjoyed the narrator, Peter Berkrot.)

I think that the younger generations (like myself or maybe this is just applicable no matter the period in history) assume that older people or even people their own age who don't understand technology are dumb. I know I've felt that. While working in a game dev company, we often expressed how stupid our users were, because things seemed obvious to us. It was great to hear his thoughts on how it's not your fault you can't figure something out, it's the designer's. I think anyone who has ever made something needs to hear that. You made it, you have a mental model of how it works, of course it seems intuitive to you. He also goes into the difficulties designers face in getting to a good design and the struggle to keep a good design from being changed along the way.

I do think there were a few times he oversimplified things as far as challenges designers face, but overall he seemed to take a fair stance. It was especially fascinating to hear his "theories" on what computers would become (this was written in '88) and compare them to what HAS happened so far. He's often quite spot on, though I'm not sure how many of those things he helped MAKE happen. ;)

BLAH BLAH BLAH, IT'S GOOD. If you're a designer, a must read. If you aren't, it may be a little dense but still worth it if you're interested. Definitely will at least help you figure out how to look out for good design in the products you buy. ...more

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Feb 16, 2019 Thomas rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-and-tech, nonfiction

This was alright.

This book came out around 1988 and was updated in 2002. That's not a problem through most of it. there are timeless principles here that will make any designer of consumer goods better at his job. These principles will also help the rest of us to be smarter consumers or just smarter people. I'm a man before I'm a consumer. A...man...I tell you!

It's little dry in places and there were points when it occurred to me that this book would really benefit from an update but if you take ...more

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Jan 26, 2014 Bryan Alexander rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: technology, design

A splendid book that I finally got around to reading, The Design of Everyday Things walks us through exactly what the title promises. Norman explores phones, doors, car keys, VCRs, water faucets, and signage, looking for principles that show how these work well or poorly.

Despite the author being a psychologist, the books is beautifully bereft of jargon. It reads like Asimov's nonfiction: accessible, brisk, pedagogically attuned, and often witty.

One nice assumption: that the user (you) is usually ...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Rob Adey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Sensible thinking, but does come across at times like an 80s observational comedy routine about motion sensitive taps.

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Aug 09, 2012 Tracey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, craft

The main question in my mind after listening to this audiobook is easily enough answered: How old IS this book, anyhow? In the introduction the author talks about how the book isn't dated. Well, it was originally published in 1988. One of the pieces of technology most discussed is the videocassette recorder. The VCR. The computers being discussed are about a step beyond the ones that were capable of adding three numbers together using a bank of systems that would fill a room.

Some of the book is ...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Brian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Brian by: Michael Economy

Shelves: principal-engineer-reading-list

(4.0) Some good stuff in here, though it's certainly dated

I'll be looking up some of his other books to see if he's as good at predicting and suggesting product improvements as he was back then.

I think he makes concrete some really common sense ways to approach and analyze designs of products that humans use. It's certainly entertaining to point out ridiculous products, interfaces etc., but that's kind of 'negative design': what not to do. That doesn't actually help you do it right. Fortunately, ...more

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May 21, 2014 Lacey rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, design

I'm just going to be real. This book was incredibly boring. I picked it up because I was told it was a classic of the field and would be useful to have in my reading repertoire. And truthfully, the only reason I gave it two stars instead of one is because of the impact this book has clearly had on the design field. I'm sure at the time of its original release, this book was light years ahead of others in the way that it thought about design. I can definitely see how its concepts have become a ...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Eduardo Rocha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book is amazing. You'll never look at another door or faucet in the sameway.
If you take anything from this book, it is these 7 principles of making a difficult design task an easy one.

1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
2. Simplify the structure of tasks.
3. Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of Execution and Evaluation.
4. Get the mappings right.
5. Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial.
6. Design for error.
7. When all else fails, ...more

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Nov 11, 2013 Jacob Mclaws rated it really liked it

Shelves: design

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 ...more

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Mar 31, 2008 Jon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: designers, computer scientists, engineers

The book introduces basic psychological concepts from areas such as cognitive psychology and ties them into usability and design.

Even though the book feels a bit outdated (they talk about rotary phones and old sewing machines), all the principles covered in the book still apply today.

Even though the book was written with things in mind that most of us won't necessarily use anymore (such as the problem of threading a projector), the principles are still useful to know when designing modern-day ...more

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Jul 02, 2018 Utsav rated it liked it

A couple of weeks ago a colleague brought some tarts to the office from Art Café. The lemon tarts were white and the coconut ones were yellow. You could see the grimaces on everybody's faces as they bit into what they thought was lemon pie and got a mouthful of coconut instead.

Small details matter.

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Jul 11, 2012 Andreea rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I usually do not let books un-finished, but this one is mediocre, especially if you have some basic psychology concepts

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About Donald A. Norman

Donald A. Norman

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Donald Arthur Norman is a professor emeritus of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego and a Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University, where he also co-directs the dual degree MBA + Engineering degree program between the Kellogg school and Northwestern Engineering. Norman is on numerous company advisory boards, including the editorial board of Encyclopædia ...more

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“Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.” — 49 likes

“Principles of design:
1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
2. Simplify the structure of tasks.
3. Make things visible: bridge gulfs between Execution and Evaluation.
4. Get the mappings right.
5. Exploit the power of constraints.
6. Design for error.
7. When all else fails, standardize.” — 35 likes

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