Design of Every Day Things

Reference:
The Design of Everyday Things
By Donald A Norman
Published 199
Summary:
The author discusses the failures of some designs, such as a door, projector, and telephone.  He states that everyday things are sacrificing good design for complexity.  Dr. Norman explains that the lack of visibility is causing most, if not all, of these problems.


Next, the book analyzes why we do certain things, and how that pertains to design of things. Often times we blame ourselves for misuse of a product, but in fact it is more due to the imprecise or faulty design of the product.  There are seven stages of action: Goals, Intention to act, sequence of actions, execution of action sequence, perceiving the state of the world, interpreting the perception, and evaluation of interpretations.


The memory process is then broken down and how clues from the world can aid in the memory process. When there aren't clues present in the world to aid memory and how to use a design, then the burden becomes solely on the memory, which isn't good.  The world/design should contain reminders and intuitive clues to aid the usefulness.


Following that, Dr. Norman discussed knowing how to use an object based on its design. The author uses examples such as a plate on a door, light switches (really long), and even sounds to indicate whether the object was working or not. The author created a different, more intuitive horizontal light switch design modeled after the room layout.


Then the challenges to designers is described. Designers typically go astray because they put aesthetics first, are not the users, and their clients may not be the users. There are two deadly temptations for designers as well, which are described as "creeping featurism and the worshiping of false images." Also the chapter has many examples, as most of the chapters do, such as the typewriter/keyboard, faucets, the telephone, and the computer.


Lastly, the final chapter combines all the information from the previous chapters into one recommendation on how to design things. The seven principles for transforming difficult tasks into simple ones are use knowledge in the head and in the world, simplify structure of tasks, make things visible, get the mappings right, exploit power of constraints, design for error, and finally when all else fails, standardize. 
Discussion:
I didn't like this book very much. It was incredibly repetitive. Each chapter reworded things that had already been discussed earlier in the book. I think the book could have been condensed into the first and last chapters, and that's it. Maybe add some of the examples presented in the other chapters. I did enjoy his use of examples, but some were trivial. I felt throughout the book that it was condescending because it used such silly examples and acted all-knowing. I felt as though the book were speaking to the reader as though the reader were a child. I would not read this book again, nor would I recommend it for future people.