The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition

by Don Norman

Overview

Design doesn't have to complicated, which is why this guide to human-centered design shows that usability is just as important as aesthetics.


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 hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization.


The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time.

The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how — and why — some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465050659
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	11/05/2013
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	19,713
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Don Norman is a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, and holds graduate degrees in both engineering and psychology. His many books include Emotional Design, The Design of Future Things, and Living with Complexity. He lives in Silicon Valley, California.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Revised Edition xi

1 The Psychopathology of Everyday Things 1

The Complexity of Modern Devices 4

Human-Centered Design 8

Fundamental Principles of Interaction 10

The System Image 31

The Paradox of Technology 32

The Design Challenge 34

2 The Psychology of Everyday Actions 37

How People Do Things: The Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation 38

The Seven Stages of Action 40

Human Thought: Mostly Subconscious 44

Human Cognition and Emotion 49

The Seven Stages of Action and the Three Levels of Processing 55

People as Storytellers 56

Blaming the Wrong Things 59

Falsely Blaming Yourself 65

The Seven Stages of Action: Seven Fundamental Design Principles 71

3 Knowledge in the Head and in the World 74

Precise Behavior from Imprecise Knowledge 75

Memory Is Knowledge in the Head 86

The Structure of Memory 91

Approximate Models: Memory in the Real World 100

Knowledge in the Head 105

The Tradeoff Between Knowledge in the World and in the Head 109

Memory in Multiple Heads, Multiple Devices 111

Natural Mapping 113

Culture and Design: Natural Mappings Can Vary with Culture 118

4 Knowing What to Do: Constraints 123

Discoverability, and Feedback Four Kinds of Constraints: Physical, Cultural, Semantic, and Logical 125

Applying Affordances, Signifiers, and Constraints to Everyday Objects 132

Constraints That Force the Desired Behavior 141

Conventions, Constraints, and Affordances 145

The Faucet: A Case History of Design 150

Using Sound as Signifiers 155

5 Human Error? No, Bad Design 162

Understanding Why There Is Error 163

Deliberate Violations 169

Two Types of Errors: Slips and Mistakes 170

The Classification of Slips 173

The Classification of Mistakes 179

Social and Institutional Pressures 186

Reporting Error 191

Detecting Error 194

Designing for Error 198

When Good Design Isn't Enough 210

Resilience Engineering 211

The Paradox of Automation 213

Design Principles for Dealing with Error 215

6 Design Thinking 217

Solving the Correct Problem 218

The Double-Diamond Model of Design 220

The Human-Centered Design Process 221

What I Just Told You? It Doesn't Really Work That Way 236

The Design Challenge 239

Complexity Is Good; It Is Confusion That Is Bad 247

Standardization and Technology 248

Deliberately Making Things Difficult 255

Design: Developing Technology for People 257

7 Design in the World of Business 258

Competitive Forces 259

New Technologies Force Change 264

How Long Does It Take to Introduce a New Product? 268

Two Forms of Innovation: Incremental and Radical 279

The Design of Everyday Things: 1988-2038 282

The Future of Books 288

The Moral Obligations of Design 291

Design Thinking and Thinking About Design 293

Acknowledgments 299

General Readings and Notes 305

References 321

Index 331

Editorial Reviews

"Even classics can be updated and improved ... Highly recommended."—Choice

"This book changed the field of design. As the pace of technological change accelerates, the principles in this book are increasingly important. The new examples and ideas about design and product development make it essential reading."—Patrick Whitney, Dean, Institute of Design, and Steelcase/Robert C. Pew Professor of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology

"Twenty-five years ago The Design of Everyday Things was instrumental in orienting my approach to design. With this latest revised and expanded edition, Don Norman has given me a host of new ideas to explore as well as reminding me of the fundamental principles of great and meaningful design. Part operating manual for designers and part manifesto on the power of designing for people, The Design of Everyday Things is even more relevant today than it was when first published."—Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO, and author of Change by Design

"Design may be our top competitive edge. This book is a joy—fun and of the utmost importance."—Tom Peters, author of the national best-seller In Search of Excellence

From the Publisher