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The Psychology of Everyday Things

donald a. norman

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Anyone who designs anything to be used by humans -- from physical objects to computer programs to conceptual tools -- must read this book, and it is an equally tremendous read for anyone who has to use anything created by another human. It could forever change how you experience and interact with your physical surroundings, open your eyes to the perversity of bad design and the desirability of good design, and raise your expectations about how things should be designed.B & W photographs and illustrations throughout.

257 pages, Hardcover

First published June 13,1988

This edition

Format
257 pages, Hardcover
Published
June 13, 1988 by Basic Books
ISBN
9780465067091
ASIN
0465067093
Language
English

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About the author

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donald a. norman

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Donald Arthur Norman is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego. He is best known for his books on design, especially The Design of Everyday Things. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the fields of design, usability engineering, and cognitive science, and has shaped the development of the field of cognitive systems engineering. He is a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, along with Jakob Nielsen. He is also an IDEO fellow and a member of the Board of Trustees of IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. He also holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. Norman is an active Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he spends two months a year teaching.
Much of Norman's work involves the advocacy of user-centered design. His books all have the underlying purpose of furthering the field of design, from doors to computers. Norman has taken a controversial stance in saying that the design research community has had little impact in the innovation of products, and that while academics can help in refining existing products, it is technologists that accomplish the breakthroughs. To this end, Norman named his website with the initialism JND (just-noticeable difference) to signify his endeavors to make a difference.

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Community Reviews

Rating(3.6 / 5.0, 43 votes)
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43 reviews All reviews
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AquarionLife
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Original 1988 version available at my library is now *very* dated. I'm surprised this is considered such a respected work when many conclusions seem to be common sense or common knowledge—maybe it's merely the first-to-market advantage? Couldn't finish this one before I had to return it because it just isn't quite engaging my attention.
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Kyleeeh
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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This is an informative and entertaining tour through the world of Bad Design, full of the reasons why so many things designed to make life easier just don't. Like VCRs. Or doors you can't figure out how to open, or remote controls you can't read in low light. Norman lays out out recommendations and observations based not just on opinion, but on a strong base of cognitive psychology and usability with a dash of curmudgeon. Reading about some of the dated musings about phones and computers (remember, this was written in '88) only make it funnier.
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Nezzuji
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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This book made me feel better about the many times I've pushed rather than pulled on doors, or had trouble lighting the correct burner on my stove. It was also interesting to think about the author's predictions and suggestions in light of the various technological advances of the last thirty years. I am definitely curious about the revised and expanded version that was published in 2013, because the original 1988 version is a blend of concepts that still make sense today and ones that seem quite out of place in today's world, combined with examples that are still very relevant and ones that are so dated as to be almost laughable. 3.5 out of 5 stars, rounded up for still being surprisingly good after thirty years of technological changes.
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kurikenshi
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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I'm not a designer and I enjoyed this book. I especially enjoyed the section on mistakes - what with being human and all. I felt better reading about other people's strange cascading failures and head-scratchings caused by lousy object design. Norman tells us about good and bad design principles in a conversational style that is very pleasant to read.

And...I will never look at or walk through a door in the same way again.
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faeryghost
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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A captivating look at why every object you use is (often poorly) designed the way that it is. A great book to read for any type of designer or creator, as well as the consumer who wants to purchase things that are a pleasure to use. By being more mindful about all the doors, faucets, computers, phones, light switches, controllers, fridges, ovens, and toasters we encounter every day, we can work to remove all the minor inconveniences that stack up and can even lead to disaster.

Really great read! 4.5/5
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Zuraaaa137
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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I bet when this book came out in the late 80's people who were studying this stuff must have thought this author's thinking was way ahead of it's time. Now when you read this book you can see just how far off he really was from how the future of gadgets has turned out. Most what what you read in this book still applies because the design of everyday things is still important and very relevant. If you design an appliance that only the smartest people can figure out, then the author would say that you created a terrible product because no one else is able to figure out how to use it, so for that matter, why make it in the first place?

This book, despite it's outdated examples, holds very important concepts for understanding how to build and design stuff. If you figure that as long as the product has what people want they will buy it, then you are living in another world. The product has to be easy to interact with and understand on it's own if the product is to be accept quickly and easily, especially if you are trying to set a industry standard.

Mr. Norman explains the seven steps to working with everyday things. In these steps, as a designer, you have to be aware of what it is your product is saying doing when people try to use it. If everyone gets it right away then the design was perfect, but if most people complain about how to use something then the design was poor and not given much thought.

The psychology aspect to designing items is to think about what kind of requirements and expectations you place on your users. Do they need to remember a lot in order to use it, like how old VCR's used to be if you wanted to set the clock or program to record a show at a certain time on a certain channel? Or does the gadget easily show the steps of what to do? If a user starts to get frustrated right away then you designed it wrong. Another thing to think about is this, if your product requires a sign in order for people to use it, then it was badly designed.

Overall, it's a good book to read and understand when designing things that people will use everyday because it makes you understand just what products get quickly accepted and what products don't and why.
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OcularAMVs
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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In a way, this is a self-help book. But to call it that is to damn it, so instead we must term it something else. The appellation, however distasteful, fits for POET (as Norman abbreviates it, later retitled The Design of Everyday Things) goes a long way in explaining just exactly why and how we make everyday mistakes, and how we can help ourselves and others escape these problems. I believe it was Pat Cadigan who I first heard sum up this book in the memorable phrase, “I didn’t fail the technology; the technology failed me.” Every time I find myself pushing on the hinge side of a door to open it, or push the door when I should have pulled, I quote that phrase. It wasn’t me who failed to understand how the door work–the door failed to provide me with the necessary clues to work it. User error, as Norman notes in POET, is a misnomer; many, many times it is a design error.

This book should be read by everyone, I think, for it deals with everybody. I know of no one who has not cursed at a computer program, or some door, or similar. But only by demanding “user centered design” can we escape the tyranny of form over function. To illustrate, take the example of file names in DOS. Yes, we have achieved the standardization of 8 character names and 3 character extensions. But this is an outdated and frustration convention. It is a holdover from CP/M days (I believe) when computers lacked the memory and storage capacity of today’s computers. But until enough people demand a change, this inefficient and confusing convention will be with us. Macintosh owners, although free of this particular evil, can no doubt recall various designs that they wish to change as well. The difference is in philosophy: the Macintosh was designed first for the user, and it is only the “creeping featurism” of established programs today that threaten its user friendliness.
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Gerbilcity
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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This book is so text heavy I started reading only the examples and finding pictures at the end of each chapter. The way it's written is actually a quite terrible user experience. This is more grounded in theory than application, and I lost interest.
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