The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition

Don Norman

Nov 2013 · Hachette UK

About this ebook

One of the world's great designers shares his vision of "the fundamental principles of great and meaningful design", that's "even more relevant today than it was when first published" (Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO).
 
Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door.
 
The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization.
 
The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time.
 
The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how -- and why -- some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
 

Ratings and reviews

My friend suggested me this book as a "classic of design"... I have barely finished 47 pages. In few words: examples were interesting, as well as quotes from human psychology. But soon it got really boring. Instead of learning I soon started noticing that author was repeating himself. Not once, but all the time. On top of all that there were complaints of "engineers been to logical for excellent design" and other variations of such sort. It has actually offended me as ID/MD. Times have changed, but this book hasn't. I would not recommend this if you value your time. The only time I see reading it would be if you have already read every other book on the topic. My apology to the author for a bad review, but Your book just is not that good as one may think.

It is considered the Bible of UX Design, and probably it is. But halfway through it becomes so repetitive that it feels like been trapped in an endless loop.

Super interesting and highly informative read. Thank you Google for offering a digital version of this book!

About the author

Don Norman is a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, and holds graduate degrees in both engineering and psychology. His many books include Emotional Design, The Design of Future Things, and Living with Complexity. He lives in Silicon Valley, California.