Donald A. Norman Quotes

Having the best product means nothing if the people won't buy it.

Serious accidents are frequently blamed on "human error." Yet careful analysis of such situations shows that the design or installation of the equipment has contributed significantly to the problems. The design team or installers did not pay sufficient attention to the needs of those who would be using the equipment, so confusion or error was almost unavoidable.

A usable design starts with careful observations of how the tasks being supported are actually performed, followed by a design process that results in a good fit to the actual ways the tasks get performed. The technical name for this method is task analysis. The name for the entire process is human-centered design (HCD), discussed

One way of overcoming the fear of the new is to make it look like the old.

Creeping featurism is a disease, fatal if not treated promptly. There are some cures, but, as usual, the best approach is to practice preventative medicine.

In the consumer economy taste is not the criterion in the marketing of expensive soft drinks, usability is not the primary criterion in the marketing of home and office appliances. We are surrounded with objects of desire, not objects of use.

If people keep buying poorly designed products, manufacturers and designers will think they are doing the right thing and continue as usual.

It is not enough that we build products that function, that are understandable and usable, we also need to build products that bring joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and, yes, beauty to people's lives.

Forget the complaints against complexity; instead, complain about confusion.

The hardest part of design ... is keeping features out.

A good designer will actually design the company.

The designer shouldn't think of a simple dichotomy between errors and correct behavior; rather, the entire interaction should be treated as a cooperative endeavor between person and machine, one in which misconceptions can arise on either side.

Computer scientists have so far worked on developing powerful programming languages that make it possible to solve the technical problems of computation. Little effort has gone toward devising the languages of interaction.

A challenge to the designers of the world: Make signs unnecessary.

If the system lets you make the error, it is badly designed.

Even systems that do not use menus need to provide some structure: appropriate constraints and forcing functions, natural good mapping, and all the tools of feedforward and feedback. The most effective way of helping people remember is to make it unnecessary.

We are victims of our own success. We have let technology lead the way, pushing ever faster to newer, faster, and more powerful systems, with nary a moment to rest, contemplate, and to reflect upon why, how, and for whom all this energy has been expended.

I think a successful company is one where everybody owns the same mission. Out of necessity, we divide ourselves up into discipline groups. But the goal when you are actually doing the work is to somehow forget what discipline group you are in and come together. So in that sense, nobody should own user experience; everybody should own it.

Once people find an explanation for an apparent anomaly, they tend to believe they can now discount it. But explanations are based on analogy with past experiences, experiences that may not apply to the current situation. In the driving story, the prevalence of billboards for Las Vegas was a signal we should have heeded, but it seemed easily explained. Our experience is typical: some major industrial incidents have resulted from false explanations of anomalous events. But do note: usually these apparent anomalies should be ignored. Most of the time, the explanation for their presence is correct. Distinguishing a true anomaly from an apparent one is difficult.

A story tells of Henry Ford's buying scrapped Ford cars and having his engineers disassemble them to see which parts failed and which were still in good shape. Engineers assumed this was done to find the weak parts and make them stronger. Nope. Ford explained that he wanted to find the parts that were still in good shape. The company could save money if they redesigned these parts to fail at the same time as the others.

The best kind of design isn't necessarily an object, a space, or a structure: it's a process- dynamic and adaptable.

Attractive things work better When you wash and wax a car, it drives better, doesn't it? Or at least feels like it does.

Question everything. I am particularly fond of "stupid" questions. A stupid question asks about things so fundamental that everyone assumes the answer is obvious.

When I use a direct manipulation system whether for text editing, drawing pictures, or creating and playing games I do think of myself not as using a computer but as doing the particular task. The computer is, in effect, invisible. The point cannot be overstressed: make the computer system invisible.

A conceptual model is an explanation, usually highly simplified, of how something works. It doesn't have to be complete or even accurate as long as it is useful.

Standardization is indeed the fundamental principle of desperation: when no other solution appears possible, simply design everything the same way, so people only have to learn once. If

When people are anxious they tend to narrow their thought processes, concentration upon aspects directly relevant to a problem. This is a useful strategy in escaping from danger, but not in thinking of imaginative new approaches to a problem.

Only the most sophisticated of beings can lie and cheat, and get away with it.

Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible,

Go to the bookstore and look at how many bookshelves are filled with books trying to explain how to work the devices. We don't see shelves of books on how to use television sets, telephones, refrigerators or washing machines. Why should we for computer-based applications?

Learning should take place when it is needed, when the learner is interested, not according to some arbitrary, fixed schedule

When you have trouble with things - whether it's figuring out whether to push or pull a door or the arbitrary vagaries of the modern computer and electronics industries - it's not your fault. Don't blame yourself: blame the designer.

The current paradigm is so thoroughly established that the only way to change is to start over again.

Once again, the designer should assume that people will be interrupted during their activities and that they may need assistance in resuming their operations.

To understand products, it is not enough to understand design or technology: it is critical to understand business.

Affordances define what actions are possible. Signifiers specify how people discover those possibilities: signifiers are signs, perceptible
signals of what can be done. Signifiers are of far more importance to designers than are affordances.

Complexity is acceptable as long as it is intelligible and necessary. We want to avoid needless complications.

The designer has an obligation to provide an appropriate conceptual model for the way that the device works. It doesn't have to completely accurate but it has to be sufficiently accurate that it will help in both the learning of the operation and also dealing with novel situations.

The major problems facing the development of products that are safer, less prone to error, and easier to use and understand are not technological: they are social and organizational.

Change the attitude toward errors. Think of an object's user as attempting to do a task, getting there by imperfect approximations. Don't think of the user as making errors; think of the actions as approximations of what is desired.

Innocence lost is not easily regained. The designer simply cannot predict the problems people will have, the misinterpretations that will arise, and the errors that will get made.

Any time you see signs or labels added to a device, it is an indication of bad design: a simple lock should not require instructions.

Principles of design:
1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
2. Simplify the structure of tasks.
3. Make things visible: bridge gulfs between Execution and Evaluation.
4. Get the mappings right.
5. Exploit the power of constraints.
6. Design for error.
7. When all else fails, standardize.

Designers know too much about their product to be objective judges: the features they have come to love and prefer may not be understood or preferred by the future customers.

Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right.

Good design is also an act of communication between the designer and the user, except that all the communication has to come about by the appearance of the device itself. The device must explain itself.

Never underestimate the power of social pressures on behavior, causing otherwise sensible people to do things they know are wrong and possibly dangerous.

Most expert, skilled behavior works this way, whether it is playing tennis or a musical instrument, or doing mathematics and science. Experts minimize the need for conscious reasoning. Philosopher

Finally, people have to actually purchase it. It doesn't matter how good a product is if, in the end, nobody uses it.

Simplification is as much in the mind as it is in the device.

Cognition and emotion are tightly intertwined, which means that the designers must design with both in mind.

A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem.

I'm not a fan of technology . I'm a fan of pedagogy, of understanding how people learn and the most effective learning methods. But technology enables some exciting changes.

As the technology matures, it becomes less and less relevant. The technology is taken for granted. Now, new customers enter the marketplace, customers who are not captivated by technology, but who instead want reliability, convenience, no fuss or bother, and low cost.

How do you discover a need that nobody yet knows about? This is where the product breakthroughs come through.

Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.

It was always amusing to be inside Apple and read what journalists said we were doing

The vicious cycle starts: if you fail at something, you think it is your fault. Therefore you think you can't do that task. As a result, next time you have to do the task, you believe you can't, so you don't even try. The result is that you can't, just as you thought.

Too many companies believe that all they must do is provide a 'neat' technology or some 'cool' product or, sometimes, just good, solid engineering. Nope. All of those are desirable (and solid engineering is a must), but there is much more to a successful product than that: understanding how the product is to be used, design, engineering, positioning, marketing, branding-all matter. It requires designing the Total User Experience.

Cognition attempts to make sense of the world: emotion assigns value.

If designers and researchers do not sometimes fail, it is a sign that they are not trying hard enough - they are not thinking the great creative thoughts that will provide breakthroughs in how we do things.

Why do we need to know about the human mind? Because things are designed to be used by people, and without a deep understanding of people, the designs are apt to be faulty, difficult to use, difficult to understand.

It is the duty of machines and those who design them to understand people. It is not our duty to understand the arbitrary, meaningless dictates of machines.