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For you budding industrial designers; The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman Ways of Seeing - Jon Berger Principles of Form and Design - Wucius Wong Des

by sbuk 8y ago

For you budding industrial designers; The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman Ways of Seeing - Jon Berger Principles of Form and Design - Wucius Wong Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work - Nigel Cross

btschaegg 8y ago
I'm currently reading Don Norman's book and I'd like to add that to me it seems to be a very worthwhile read for everyone who designs things that are used by humans. And by that, I explicitly also mean GUIs, APIs, IDEs, programming languages & DSLs... The book is very focused on what makes good design good, and only provides examples as illustrations. It's really more about applied psychology than design per se (in fact, Norman states in the preface that the original title was "The psychology of everyday things"). Edit: As an example in Software Engineering: His formalization of how humans interact with things (form a plan to reach a goal -> interact with the thing to advance toward said goal -> evaluate the outcome, rinse repeat) and the potential error sources on the way (distractions, unclear consequences, unclear affordances...) make it obvious why in many functional languages, the REPL is such a great tool.
- henryoz 8y ago
  I couldn't agree more re: Norman's book. I wish it had been recommended to me as a linguistics undergrad. He provides such a clear explanation as to how design is a way of solving communication problems over making things look good. I also run into "Norman doors" at least once a week and always smile when I remember the term.
  - sbuk 8y ago
    It's one of the principles that has stuck with me throughout my professional life; design is solving problems, not solving aesthetics.
    - omnimus 8y ago
      But don't be completely in denial of aesthetics. Looking good often helps function a lot.
    - bordercases 8y ago
      Get you a man who can do both. Architects in particular seem rather high-falutin' until you read the understanding of their work. Aesthetics often means making something so beautiful that it harmonizes with the rest of how you live. Ugly things stand out and cause greater disunion in our lives.
bordercases 8y ago
Elements of Design by Gail Greet Hannah is also superlative, but much less procedural than Wong. Like other design books it's learned better when applied than read, in particular because Hannah takes after her mentor (Rowena Reed) and emphasizes a grammar for visual relationships. Reed's work on doing things at off-angles and ensuring that there always exists a dominant, subdominant and subordinate relationship in all dimensions of a work, are critical. Despite the emphasis on terminology, there is no better book for the fundamentals of three-dee form out there, particularly since in the digital age there is a plenitude of resources for two-dee form. If you want to know why elite architects make the decisions they do for the shape of buildings beyond their function, here is a good start.

by sbuk 8y ago

btschaegg 8y ago

I'm currently reading Don Norman's book and I'd like to add that to me it seems to be a very worthwhile read for everyone who designs things that are used by humans. And by that, I explicitly also mean GUIs, APIs, IDEs, programming languages & DSLs... The book is very focused on what makes good design good, and only provides examples as illustrations. It's really more about applied psychology than design per se (in fact, Norman states in the preface that the original title was "The psychology of everyday things"). Edit: As an example in Software Engineering: His formalization of how humans interact with things (form a plan to reach a goal -> interact with the thing to advance toward said goal -> evaluate the outcome, rinse repeat) and the potential error sources on the way (distractions, unclear consequences, unclear affordances...) make it obvious why in many functional languages, the REPL is such a great tool.

henryoz 8y ago
I couldn't agree more re: Norman's book. I wish it had been recommended to me as a linguistics undergrad. He provides such a clear explanation as to how design is a way of solving communication problems over making things look good. I also run into "Norman doors" at least once a week and always smile when I remember the term.
- sbuk 8y ago
  It's one of the principles that has stuck with me throughout my professional life; design is solving problems, not solving aesthetics.
  - omnimus 8y ago
    But don't be completely in denial of aesthetics. Looking good often helps function a lot.
  - bordercases 8y ago
    Get you a man who can do both. Architects in particular seem rather high-falutin' until you read the understanding of their work. Aesthetics often means making something so beautiful that it harmonizes with the rest of how you live. Ugly things stand out and cause greater disunion in our lives.

bordercases 8y ago

Elements of Design by Gail Greet Hannah is also superlative, but much less procedural than Wong. Like other design books it's learned better when applied than read, in particular because Hannah takes after her mentor (Rowena Reed) and emphasizes a grammar for visual relationships. Reed's work on doing things at off-angles and ensuring that there always exists a dominant, subdominant and subordinate relationship in all dimensions of a work, are critical. Despite the emphasis on terminology, there is no better book for the fundamentals of three-dee form out there, particularly since in the digital age there is a plenitude of resources for two-dee form. If you want to know why elite architects make the decisions they do for the shape of buildings beyond their function, here is a good start.