The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition Author: Don Norman | Language: English | ISBN:
B00E257T6C | Format: PDF
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition Description
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.
In this entertaining and insightful analysis, cognitive scientist Donald A. Norman hails excellence of design as the most important key to regaining the competitive edge in influencing consumer behavior. Now fully expanded and updated, with a new introduction by the author, The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how—and why—some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
- File Size: 1862 KB
- Print Length: 370 pages
- Publisher: Basic Books; Revised Edition edition (November 5, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00E257T6C
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,787 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Industries > Retailing - #5
in Books > Business & Money > Industries & Professions > Retailing - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Applied Psychology
Finally I got a chance to read this amazing book. Don Norman treats design very methodically and shows that good design is not a black box but something even more analytical people can understand and apply.
There are many important lessons but I found the concepts of discoverability, affordance, signifiers, feedbacks, mappings and constraints a simple, yet a powerful model to understand design.
I am not a designer by a far stretch but I can now appreciate good vs bad design with a deeper understanding of the designer's intent in building something. Even of design is not your field, you will greatly benefit from the book and you will realize that design is not just a touchy feely topic.
Although, I would have to say that for a design book, the images are not printed very well (in the paper back edition). And the during introducing the core concepts, in the first chapter, the author forgot to include 'constraints'. Also the order of these terms keep changing though out the book. This does not align well with the mapping concept the author so strongly professes.
However, now that this edition is out, don't get the previous version, since this one has far more relevant examples including hand held devices. As an additional resource, there is also a design course on udacity offered by Don Norman.
By Smiling Buddha
Learning the basic design principles in this book has altered the way I look at everything around me. I recommend it for everyone.
By Matt
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