For additional reading related to UI/UX, usability testing, service blueprints, usable web pages and all sorts of related topics, head over to the Nielsen Norman Group webpage (https://www.nngroup.com). Yes, that's Don Norman who wrote the book referenced by the OP and also Jakob Nielsen (a.k.a. the king of usability) :-)
The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
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Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#12Warning: this book leaves some permanent imprints in your mind that will forever cause you to be annoyed at badly designed doors and other things.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#13For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. Another was that obviousness of a feature is how that thing will be used. You don't want people placing stuff on top of walls, don't make them flat.
> For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. I think this is a bit too easy. After all it depends on what problem the thing is solving. E.g. if I think of lab test equipment you failing to use it properly might have nothing to do with the design and everything to do with you not having sufficient knowledge in the given domain. I…
I didn't mean 'everything'. Things that do require specialized knowledge are already used by a very specific subset of people.
Its about common everyday things. We have a washing machine which I totally can't use without going through the manual, reading which number and which light does what. You shouldn't need to carefully go through a manual to just wash your clothes.
There is another book "User Interface Design for Programmers" by Joel Spolsky from which my take away was that no one is going to read all your manuals and documents.
Both of these essentially boil down to making things obvious for your end users.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#14Warning: this book leaves some permanent imprints in your mind that will forever cause you to be annoyed at badly designed doors and other things.
The book makes you question the sanity of a world that even gets the design of doors wrong.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#15This is definitely one of the books that has shaped my thinking the most.
The book argues very strongly for functional design and design that makes usage obvious. “The way you use a thing should be encoded in the way the thing is, not in a manual”. I’ve been told there’s a follow up that concedes some of this and argues for emotional design. Something a long the lines of “this thing doesn’t need this handle, but it makes the thing feel manageable and less intimidating”.
My biggest eye opener, though, was the idea of designing for display in the store versus usage at home.
An updated example for me is the iPhone. It has premium materials that are assembled with tiny tolerances and has a very nice feel in the hand. But once you’ve been impressed by these in the store and you buy it, you slap on a $5 cover and never enjoy the premium materials and physical design.
The reasonable thing would be to have the phone shell-less and with interchangeable covers, like an old Nokia phone, but that is not nice in the show room.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#16This is definitely one of the books that has shaped my thinking the most. The book argues very strongly for functional design and design that makes usage obvious. “The way you use a thing should be encoded in the way the thing is, not in a manual”. I’ve been told there’s a follow up that concedes some of this and argues for emotional design. Something a long the lines of “this thing doesn’t need this handle, but it m…
I wonder how much of that is a user vs designer thing. On the few occasions when I wear suits, I’ve actually removed the cover, because it safely glides in and out of the suit pocket like it was almost designed for it.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#17For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. Another was that obviousness of a feature is how that thing will be used. You don't want people placing stuff on top of walls, don't make them flat.
> For me one lesson was that when we fail to properly use a thing we should blame that thing for its bad design instead of ourselves. I think this is a bit too easy. After all it depends on what problem the thing is solving. E.g. if I think of lab test equipment you failing to use it properly might have nothing to do with the design and everything to do with you not having sufficient knowledge in the given domain. I…
By the principle of only taking responsibility where you can do something about it: designer blames design; user blames user.
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#18Warning: this book leaves some permanent imprints in your mind that will forever cause you to be annoyed at badly designed doors and other things.
The book makes you question the sanity of a world that even gets the design of doors wrong.
A "Norman door" is a poorly designed door that confuses or fails to give you an idea whether to push, pull or slide. https://99percentinvisible.org/article/norman-doors-dont-kno...
Re: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#19 "their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws” - DNARe: The Design of Everyday Things – Book Summary and Notes
#20I have heard some great things about this book as far as physical design. Has this book inspired any insights on design of software or other engineering related topics?