Copyright: 2005
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465051367
Don Norman has a fascinating way of looking at the world. As with many of the thought leaders in design much of his work is academic in nature. One of the frustrations of my research in human computer interaction is finding work that is pragmatic. While Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things has a tremendous amount of valuable information, after reading it one wonders what practical purpose might be served. I suppose that makes sound like I am not smart enough to understand these guys but that's perfectly fine with me. I like having my thinking challenged, I just wish Don Norman was writing about stuff that he personally had designed and was explaining why his products were vast commercial successes. Regardless, his book made me think which makes it an excellent read in my opinion!
Thoughts and Notes
Again, here is just a dump of my notebook.
- Three components of design
- Visceral (Appearance)
- Behavioral (Pleasure and effectiveness)
- Reflective (Rationalization and intellectualization)
- Anxiety causes us to narrow our focus; "feeling good" causes us to open our minds to creative and alternative solutions.
- The correct response to failure with computers is to try an alternate solution (yet many users don't)
- Cognitive assigns Meaning; Affective assigns Value
- User Experience is made up of:
- Function (What it does)
- Peformance (How well it does it)
- Usability (How easy it is to do it)
Quotes
"Engineers and designers who believe they do not need to watch the people who use their products are a major source of the many poor designs that confront us."
"Great products are visions of one person. Profitable products are iterative and user centered."
Conclusion
As always, Don Norman's work is thought provoking. The latter half of his book deals with some interesting material with regard to intelligence and robots. If you are interested in designing robots you should definitely read this book, particularly the last half.