The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition

A lot of people voice their disappointment with this book, because they expect it to be an in-depth, authoritative guide written for professional designers, and it turns out to be something else. Let me tell you a little secret, design people: it's not "the design bible", it's not "the UX bible", it's not anything bible. It's more of a religious pamphlet aimed at laymen who don't normally think about design in their everyday work, to bring them the gospel of good design practices in an extremely condensed form. Developers love this book, because it's good (duh!) and also because it comes with recommendations from several luminaries in the field, most notably Jeff Atwood, the co-founder of StackOverflow. I'm no exception. It helped shift my focus from making software that does its job well, to making software that helps its users do their jobs well. It explains in very simple terms why you should care about how users experience and interact with the things you make and how to start thinking about making their interactions more satisfying and rewarding. It also walks you through the typical interaction cycle, from the idea of action that user wants to perform, to the interpretation of feedback they receive; it is a tremendous help when you are trying to 'debug' the interactions and figure out the exact reason why users find your design distracting, irritating or counter-intuitive. There are sections clarifying the terms you might have heard elsewhere but don't know exactly what they mean (A/B testing, root cause analysis, iterative vs. waterfall approach) or how they might help you improve your design. There is a particularly illuminating chapter explaining why fridge controls and stove controls (among many other things) come in so many different and incompatible designs, how companies are trying to solve this problem with standardization and why standards sometimes create more problems than they solve. What else? It's also short, well-written and entertaining. The jokes are rare, poignant, and usually delivered with a deadpan snark. To give you an example, "The typewriter was a radical innovation that had a dramatic impact upon office and home writing. It helped provide a role for women in offices as typists and secretaries, which led to the redefinition of the job of secretary to be a dead end rather than the first step toward an executive position". Nice, huh? To summarize: buy this book if you want to know more about design in general and/or become a better designer to complement your other skills. Don't buy this book if you expect a huge how-to manual or a cookbook aimed at experienced designers.

Another great book for the year 4.5 out of 5 stars. While popular among designers (especially the UX/UI community), I’d say the design and psychological concepts presented have a wide range of applicability to any industry and for consumers/users of anything and thus I hope more people read it. As someone with a background in healthcare and who has been reading broadly on self-help and global issues, I found many conceptual ties between the design concepts in the book and each of these topics that people tend to treat as separate silos. For instance, are the treatment plans therapists create fully useable from the patient’s perspective? We like to write that we sent the patient home with their home exercise plan(HEP) and patient was able to verbalize (and sometimes return demonstrate) understanding but how likely are the patients to recall what was taught once home? If they don’t recall what is available to help them recall what terms mean and what the exercise looks and feels like? And better yet, how can we improve the delivery of the HEP to improve adherence to the program? Beyond healthcare, how are we designing whole industries and systems? Design thinking differs from the thought processes in other areas of study yet I see some possible applicability/laterally transferable aspects to processes such as differential diagnosis in science. Overall this is a great intro on the process and a great addition to anyone’s mental toolbox. Content aside: Norman can be dry at times (or maybe it was the subject?). Some sections feel a touch too brief (likely because he had to edit it down to a manageable book size). The book’s look and feel (size, matte finish, page quality, use of font sizes and alignments) were delightful except for the black and white photos that needed more contrast (or color) to illustrate their point.

Kocht deze versie als geschenk. De uitgave is enorm teleurstellend... Cover foto helemaal uitgewassen en lage resolutie.

I read the book and sometimes got a little confused but I read most of it drunk. He gives a lot of cool examples that make you go "Oh that's why fire escape doors have that bar in front of them and open outwards". I wish more people in the design/manufacturing field would have read this book. It would make for far less waste and frustration in the world

Das Buch war an der Uni für die Einführungsvorlesung zu Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) Pflichtlektüre. In der Vorlesung wurde es als ein Muss für alle vorgestellt, die UI/UX-Design machen. Nach zweimaligem Lesen kann ich dies bestätigen. Aber auch für Leute, die mit HCI oder Design nichts am Hut haben, kann ich das Buch empfehlen. Es liefert einem eine ganz andere Sichtweise auf Dinge, die man täglich im Leben benutzt. Und da ist meine größte Erkenntnis: Fehler durch "menschliches Versagen" - egal ob das große oder nur kleine Auswirkungen hat - sind meist nicht durch den Menschen verursacht, sondern durch schlechtes Design. Das ist eine Denkweise, mit der man sich selbst weniger herunterzieht. Norman macht aus etlichen Beispielen aus dem Leben deutlich, wie einfach oder kompliziert Gegenstände entworfen werden. Dabei gibt er einfache Modelle, die helfen das menschliche Handeln und die Psychologie hinter ihrem Handeln zu verstehen. Er beantwortet Fragen wie: -Wie funktionieren mentale Modelle? -Wie denkt der Mensch und führt Aktionen aus? Was können dabei für Probleme auftreten? Was ist wenn Fehler auftreten? -Wie funktioniert (vereinfacht) das Gedächtnis und was können wir daraus für Design lernen? -Wie kann Design Menschen dazu beeinflussen das "Richtige" zu tun und Fehler zu vermeiden? -Wie kann ein Team im Idealfall ein Designprojekt funktionieren? Die Beispiele aus dem Alltag, die er in dieser überarbeiteten Version anführt, sind so gewählt, dass sie modern sind und wahrscheinlich auch noch in einigen Jahren aktuell sind. Auch wenn es nun bereits einige Zeit her ist, dass ich das Buch gelesen habe, denke ich immer noch häufig an Beispiele aus dem Buch; zum Beispiel wenn ich wieder einer "Norman-Tür" begegne und drücke statt zu ziehen, oder wenn ich zum hundertsten Mal versuche die Temperatur in meinem Kühlschrank anzupassen, den Drehregler aber immer noch nicht verstanden habe. Das Buch ist sehr gut lesbar, sprachlich einfach gehalten, interessant und unterhaltsam. Es gibt einige Abbildungen, die zum Verständnis beitragen. Fazit: Klare Leseempfehlung.

I enjoy the stories told in this book. Think about pressing pedestrian crossing button to cross streets,sometime you might press several times, why? because no feedback is returned when you press, that causes you to wonder whether your request is taken into account or not. One more thing, when something goes wrong, don't blame yourself immediately,first check it's the problem of the design or not. And want to know how designers think/behave when there is an issue,they don't start to resolve it right away, they rethink again the issue. To you to discover the book then.Hope you enjoy it as well.

Excelente.