Grab The Design Of Everyday Things: Revised And Expanded Edition Constructed By Don Norman Shown In Document

overview of design principles described in the first half of the book are interesting, I certainly became aware of the kinds of poor design choices outlined and certainly learned a few things that will be helpful in my communications and systems development role at work.

The explanations of the psychology behind product interaction are, to me, poorly organized and explained, Further, if you've read any psychology or behavioral economics before, there's little to be learned here,
Finally, the writing itself is fairly poor, I read nonfiction almost exclusively, so I don't think it's the technical nature of the content it's just not very engaging, The personal anecdotes, as other reviews have noted, often feel forced and a little self congratulatory, A better editor would have helped, too, There were quite a few instances of small annoyances such as using less where fewer was needed, or an overabundance of as a result towards the end.
This book was assigned in a UX/UI college class, and I'm not done with it but I've read enough to know I hate it and honestly can't believe my school treats this book like it's the bible of design or something.
I'm used to academic topis being studied with rigor, and this book isone person sharing his opinion and experience with a few mentions of studies, In other words it's just anecdotal, And it reads like a crotchety old man who complains about everything, Like, he can find the problem with every design, but doesn't spend half as much time talking about good design,
To summarize, I find this book weak regarding the validity of it since it's just one person's opinion, it creates the experience of just listening to someone complains about everything, and doesn't leave me feeling like I'm learning any useful design skills.
A pamphlet may be able to be reduced to a single page flow chart, It's a Norman book in the same way a terrible door is a Norman door, That assumes its purpose is to inform the reader in a succinct manner, and not generate money for the author who mentions his other works many times throughout.
It's exceptionally good at generating revenue maybe I'm applying his solution to the wrong problem, the correct problem being 'I need money for a boat, ' Please bear in mind I'm reading this book on my computer so it's displayed in double page format, It's a good book so far but I'm SURPRISED that the top reviews don't include the fact that the right page often doesn't finish the last sentence of the left page.
Sometimes the right page will start a sentence, and the left page will try to continue it but the top half of the words are cut off and sometimes, it often repeats the last paragraph of the left page.


All I'm saying is maybe buy the paperback version instead, Its a good book with great examples, It does shed some light on the troubles with design and shows problems from another perspective and it should be rightfully considered as one of the key books regarding design in general.
However, It's quite shallow and the author doesn't go into much of a detail, Don't get me wrong, I am not a literary critic or anything but as a European, the style is not a strong suit, People, who are used to the American style of literature are going to

be fine, but sometimes there is too much repetition of ideas and a bit deeper analysis of the problem would be beneficial.
To sum up. The contribution of the author in the field of proper and functional design is huge and the terminology used is crucial for understanding the key principles of design is paramount.
But I would go into a bit detail, Get the MIT press version if you intend to keep the book, I have the kindle version and its much better on an iPad, The paper and book quality is abysmal,

The book is very well known and you can search for the author's videos to give you an overview of what this book is about.
Makes you think and definitely a good starting point if you want to learn about design This is a great book to get you thinking, The concepts covered explore how we look at the world and processes what we see and it's influence in design or lack of!, Recommend to anyone who has an interest in human factors psychology So far, the content is informative and interesting, However, I would think a book about design would be well designed, The section headings on the left sided pages are so far to the right I have to crack the spine all the way open to read many of them.
This is so annoying to me I don't know if I can finish reading it, The small, grainy graphics are also dismaying, It's difficult to have confidence in the author's expertise when so little thought is put into the presentation, A UX researcher's or designer's bible, If studying human factors engineering, human computer interaction, or any other related field your professors, peers, and colleagues will reference this book and Don Norman, I keep this on my desk at work and continue to use it when explaining heuristics to clients, engineers or data scientists, Strong start, descends into droning and self gratification by the mid way point, Not a review of the book, I'm sure it's great, Unfortunately the copy I received was supposed to be brand new but the cover was quite badly damaged, acceptable for a second hand book but not one that is listed as new.
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 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 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 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 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, Design doesn't have to complicated, which is why this guide to human centered design shows that usability is just as important as aesthetics,
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,
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