5 ms·

The article leads with a quote by Don Norman. I read his book "The design of everyday things" after hearing a lot of people speak highly of it. I found it qui

The article leads with a quote by Don Norman. I read his book "The design of everyday things" after hearing a lot of people speak highly of it. I found it quite underwhelming. Anyone have insight of what people think is so noteworthy about that book?

vazamb 6y ago
I am not a designer/UX person but still thought I would give it a go. I couldn't get through more than 30% of it because of how boring and repetitive it was.
chadcmulligan 6y ago
Same, my thoughts are its one of those things that it was revolutionary at the time but the ideas have become so distributed now so it seems obvious. Originally published in 1988, windows 3.0 was released in 1990, it was published when MS-DOS was king.
serjester 6y ago
For me it seemed like it fleshed out a lot of ideas about what makes good UX. I didn't think it was earth shattering but I think back to it often when I interact with the various items in my life. It's nice for someone to explicitly explain something you intuitively grasp but can't clearly explain.
- georgeecollins 6y ago
  Here's a little trivia: It was originally titled the Psychology of Everyday things. It was so popular with designers, particularly software designers, that they re-titled it.
georgeecollins 6y ago
Wow! I was his student many, many years ago. I had to take his class because he was the head of our department. I thought I was going to do something very different with my life and I wasn't very interested, except that he was a great lecturer. In retrospect he was easily the most influential professor I ever had. If his work in something like "Design of Everyday Things" seems underwhelming I would guess that is because it has become so influential that you already have absorbed a lot of the ideas in the book. You certainly live in a world that is slightly shaped by them. As a teacher, Norman constantly taught through anecdotes about the way things work. ATMs used to give you money and then after they gave you money they would return your card. The model for the bank was take card, do transaction, return card. The problem was people kept leaving their cards in the machine. Donald Norman pointed out that the "mental model" for people was go to atm-> get money. Once the last step is accomplished the customer doesn't thinks they are done. They don't want to keep thinking about the ATM. "Mental Model" of an interface is a term you may have heard and he coined. Now every time I go to an ATM and it gives me my card back before the money, I think of him.
- war1025 6y ago
  I think part of the trouble is I read the "revised and expanded edition." From some of the reviews I remember reading at the time, the revisions did the book no favors.
  - aspaceman 6y ago
    I think the biggest additional thing from that book is the concept of "affordances". Practically every UI related person I talk to talks about the concept intentionally or not and he put a name to it. I would agree the book has little in terms of practical advice nowadays. It was brief and straightforward at the time, and age has only lessened the impact.
    - georgeecollins 6y ago
      Yeah that is another one that really sticks with you. Later in life I was a video game designer and every time I had to make a UX decision I channeled Donald Norman.
- david422 6y ago
  I noticed that with the ATM. And I've left my card in there before. Good change.
  - m463 6y ago
    You know there are some ATMs that don't take your card at all. You put them in enough to read them and pull them out. but many ATMs were designed with a business goal of confiscating cards.
munificent 6y ago
You're probably falling prey to the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" effect: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

vazamb 6y ago

I am not a designer/UX person but still thought I would give it a go. I couldn't get through more than 30% of it because of how boring and repetitive it was.

chadcmulligan 6y ago

Same, my thoughts are its one of those things that it was revolutionary at the time but the ideas have become so distributed now so it seems obvious. Originally published in 1988, windows 3.0 was released in 1990, it was published when MS-DOS was king.

serjester 6y ago

For me it seemed like it fleshed out a lot of ideas about what makes good UX. I didn't think it was earth shattering but I think back to it often when I interact with the various items in my life. It's nice for someone to explicitly explain something you intuitively grasp but can't clearly explain.

georgeecollins 6y ago
Here's a little trivia: It was originally titled the Psychology of Everyday things. It was so popular with designers, particularly software designers, that they re-titled it.

georgeecollins 6y ago

Wow! I was his student many, many years ago. I had to take his class because he was the head of our department. I thought I was going to do something very different with my life and I wasn't very interested, except that he was a great lecturer. In retrospect he was easily the most influential professor I ever had. If his work in something like "Design of Everyday Things" seems underwhelming I would guess that is because it has become so influential that you already have absorbed a lot of the ideas in the book. You certainly live in a world that is slightly shaped by them. As a teacher, Norman constantly taught through anecdotes about the way things work. ATMs used to give you money and then after they gave you money they would return your card. The model for the bank was take card, do transaction, return card. The problem was people kept leaving their cards in the machine. Donald Norman pointed out that the "mental model" for people was go to atm-> get money. Once the last step is accomplished the customer doesn't thinks they are done. They don't want to keep thinking about the ATM. "Mental Model" of an interface is a term you may have heard and he coined. Now every time I go to an ATM and it gives me my card back before the money, I think of him.

war1025 6y ago
I think part of the trouble is I read the "revised and expanded edition." From some of the reviews I remember reading at the time, the revisions did the book no favors.
- aspaceman 6y ago
  I think the biggest additional thing from that book is the concept of "affordances". Practically every UI related person I talk to talks about the concept intentionally or not and he put a name to it. I would agree the book has little in terms of practical advice nowadays. It was brief and straightforward at the time, and age has only lessened the impact.
  - georgeecollins 6y ago
    Yeah that is another one that really sticks with you. Later in life I was a video game designer and every time I had to make a UX decision I channeled Donald Norman.
david422 6y ago
I noticed that with the ATM. And I've left my card in there before. Good change.
- m463 6y ago
  You know there are some ATMs that don't take your card at all. You put them in enough to read them and pull them out. but many ATMs were designed with a business goal of confiscating cards.

munificent 6y ago

You're probably falling prey to the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" effect: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...