Rarely-quoted excerpts from "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman
The Design of Everyday Things was the first design book I read and it may be the best first design book to pick up.
I found this book by following a recommendation from another designer while I was creating an admissions portfolio for NC State's design program. It's a great book for grasping foundational design principles like usability, user-centered design and cognitive psychology.
If you haven't read it, or if it's time to brush up on it again like I need to do, it's well worth doing. Julie Lasky wrote that Ralph Caplan's writings helped designers explain their jobs to their own mothers, I feel that Don Norman does the same.
Many of Don's quotes from The Design of Everyday Things circulate the internet and educational presentations, but plenty of other excerpts don’t, despite being valuable. Certainly that's a testament to how insightful the entire book is. Regardless, here are a few snippets from The Design of Everyday Things that I haven't seen circulated online, but I believe are worth noting:
"Our technologies may change, but the fundamental principles of interaction are permanent."
"Design is concerned with how things work, how they are controlled, and the nature of the interaction between people and technology. When done well, the results are brilliant, pleasurable products. When done badly, the products are unusable, leading to great frustration and irritation. Or they might be usable, but force us to behave the way the product wishes rather than as we wish."
“The idea that a person is at fault when something goes wrong is deeply entrenched in society. That’s why we blame others and even ourselves. Unfortunately, the idea that a person is at fault is imbedded in the legal system. When major accidents occur, official courts of inquiry are set up to assess the blame. More and more often the blame is attributed to “human error.” The person involved can be fined, punished, or fired. Maybe training procedures are revised. The law rests comfortably. But in my experience, human error usually is a result of poor design: it should be called system error. Humans err continually; it is an intrinsic part of our nature. System design should take this into account. Pinning the blame on the person may be a comfortable way to proceed, but why was the system ever designed so that a single act by a single person could cause calamity? Worse, blaming the person without fixing the root, underlying cause does not fix the problem: the same error is likely to be repeated by someone else.”
"Write things down. Writing is a powerful technology: why not use it? Use a pad of paper, or the back of your hand. Write it or type it. Use a phone or a computer. Dictate it. This is what technology is for. The unaided mind is surprisingly limited. It is things that make us smart. Take advantage of them."
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