A cognitive psychologist looks at how people interact with designed everyday objects and what makes those designs good or bad.

This was a terrific book on everyday things.

The domain of feelings, behavior, relationships and awareness lies far beyond a psychology 101 textbook. In my time in finance, i've seen how the timelines of money's compounding effect contrasts with the time of human drive to consume. And even for the veneer of cold sterile thought put into design, even designer is beholden to a set of users and their unpredictable range of behaviors and wants.

"Psychology of Everyday Things" (POET), breaks apart the every day objects, to discernale understandable pieces. From a 16-piece stapler to a modern laptop, every object has pieces. Every piece has a design. Norman provides the declarative knowledge of "what", but frankly the object excels as an explanation of "why".

Why design a remote controller with this. Where did the conceptual model come from. The advertisers want something flashy, the manufacture wants cheap materials, the design wants clever, and the user just wants it to work. Human beings are wired to form relationships (mappings) between objects and the way we think it can be used. The brilliant example of a therostate shows how an everyday object is misinterpreated by many people. Some thing a thermostat button will turn it on for a length of time, some think it will turn to a particular temperature. Really it's just designed to be a binary on/off switch.

In some ways we design a object, but from Norman's perceptive, we really design our ideas with a human imprint. With our mankind-centric approach the markers of success are Visiblity, Good Conceptual Model, Good Mappings and Feedback.

The 7 step process he lays out here makes me really think about process of anything we learn:

1. Goals
2. Intention to Act
3. Sequence of Actions
4. Execution of Sequences
5. Perceiving the state of the world
6. Interpreting the perception
7. Evaluation of interpretation

Finally we design objects that are sleek modern and encapsulate a lot of the time. Sometimes to protect us. Sometime to make easier to use. But there is the balance of adding functionality and being easy to use.

Norman ends with some excellent examples of everyday objects and shows how their design conflicts with our assumptions. Facets, keyboards, telephones.

Easy book to fly through. Just remember, if you really want to learn it, read all the fine print.

Readable, informative, and very interesting. Anyone into user interface design should read this book for background and insights into stupid things like door handles. What makes a successful door handle? The same answers to that question lead you into the questions to answer for GUIs.

There are some useful tips about design here, but you can tell Norman’s not really a writer. Almost all of it could have been summarized in a 3-page outline.

At one point he says something to the effect of “Sure, a novel needs to be read in order, but a non-fiction book like this doesn’t need to be,” which really illuminates his conceptual model for the book. I’ve read plenty of non-fiction in which ideas are organized logically; tension is built/released/managed throughout; and readers are brought along a narrative journey that eventually alters their view of reality. (Some examples: Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything; Mary Roach’s Gulp) This, unfortunately, was not one of these books. Instead, it reads like it was written very “bottom-up”; each tiny section was written on its own, separately, and then an outline was developed after-the-fact to encompass all the disparate snippets. The problem is that the snippets remain disparate without any linkages between them.

On the positive side, the low density did make for a quick read.

Starts strong, gets a bit rambly though and the anecdotes which start fun get a bit tiresome. Still a good foundational book on human centered design and I always enjoy reading seminal books that were controversial when written and now represent the industry standard.

The examples are dated, but the basic principles are still widely applicable. Norman's predictions about future technology are eerily apt and made me realize just how convenient smartphones are. Set an alarm? Sure! Add a note to my calendar? Done! Type up a book review and submit it to the world? You got it.

Thank you for writing a book which explains why I keep walking into doors and fumbling with apparently simple tasks!
There is a striking description of the future technology that would change our lives - which is exactly the niche that a smartphone fills. I photocopied a page on how not to design a computer system, because our student system ticks practically every box.

This is a helpful warning against the pitfalls of sloppy design with valuable advice on organizing systems so that average users will find them understandable and convenient. The author built a strong case for user-centered architecture in the era of impossible VCR mauals and phone systems with features that were varied and useful but impossible to learn. Since then, the word "intuitive" has become a common buzzword, with user-friendly design being a pivotal concern in the release of a new product. In retrospect, the author's insight was so keen that I frequently found myself wondering if certain technology developers hadn't read the book.


The age of the book makes some of the content a little dated, but the considerations are still perfectly salient. I have found much of the advice to be useful in mapping out a project or planning an event.

As the originally published (1988) version of Norman’s now-called The Design of Everyday Things, this book was both intriguing and amusing. Reading this 34 years after the published date, before the age of smart phones and widespread use of internet, coming upon wishful references of “pocket-size computers” tuned me in to how drastically technology has changed. That being said, some of the examples Norman provides are rather outdated, but make me all the more eager to read the updated 2013 version and compare the differences.

Dating and relevance aside, Norman so interestingly intertwines the psychologies of human function and design. Upon reading the foreword, I thought POET (how Norman refers to the book) would be solely a drawn-out complaint of inconvenient contraptions, but throughout the seven chapters, Norman skillfully explains the faults of poor design with research on human error and memory. He furthermore describes characteristics of good design, as well as the challenges designers face to make a well-designed product, simultaneously addressing problems that all people come upon on a daily basis and raising new ideas that the everyday person would not consider without researching the topic. In so doing, Norman enables readers to easily both relate to and learn from his discussion.

Good, smart points; too often people blame themselves for errors with devices when the designs are faulty - something even as "simple" as doors.

The lessons here are undortunately not well learned, 23 years later, perhaps even less so as products are rushed to market today. Another one for the toolbox.

I love thinking about the form and function of things so this book was right up my alley. This book is about product design, but it’s also about organized thinking. You could design a product, a class, a book, a song, anything with the principles he talks about. I’m going to recommend this to my coworkers so they can hopefully learn to design a meeting that brings me joy.