The Design of Everyday Things

THE

DESIGN

OF EVERYDAY

THINGS

ALSO BY

DON NORMAN

TEXTBOOKS

Memory and Attention: An Introduction to

Human Information Processing
.

     
First edition, 1969; second edition 1976

Human Information Processing
.

     
(with Peter Lindsay: first edition, 1972; second edition 1977)

SCIENTIFIC MONOGRAPHS

Models of Human Memory

     
(edited, 1970)

Explorations in Cognition

     
(with David E. Rumelhart and the LNR Research Group, 1975)

Perspectives on Cognitive Science

     
(edited, 1981)

User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction

     
(edited with Steve Draper, 1986)

TRADE BOOKS

Learning and Memory
, 1982

The Psychology of Everyday Things
, 1988

The Design of Everyday Things

     
1990 and 2002 (paperbacks of
The Psychology of Everyday Things
with new prefaces)

The Design of Everyday Things

     
Revised and Expanded Edition
, 2013

Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles
, 1992

Things That Make Us Smart
, 1993

The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex, and Information Appliances Are the Answer
, 1998

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
, 2004

The Design of Future Things
, 2007

A Comprehensive Strategy for Better Reading: Cognition and Emotion
, 2010

     
(with Masanori Okimoto; my essays, with commentary in Japanese, used for teaching English as a second language to Japanese speakers)

Living with Complexity
, 2011

CD-ROM

First person: Donald A. Norman. Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine
, 1994

THE

DESIGN

OF EVERYDAY

THINGS

REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION

Don Norman

BASIC BOOKS

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

New York

Copyright © 2013 by Don Norman

Published by Basic Books,

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, New York 10107.

Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail
[email protected]
.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Norman, Donald A.

[Psychology of everyday things]

        
The design of everyday things / Don Norman.—Revised and expanded edition.

pages cm

        
ISBN 978-0-465-07299-6 (ebook) 1. Industrial design—Psychological aspects. 2. Human engineering. I. Title.

     
TS171.4.N67
2013

     
745.2001'9—dc23

2013024417

10
   
9
   
8
   
7
   
6
   
5
   
4
   
3
   
2
   
1

For Julie

CONTENTS

Preface to the Revised Edition

1
        
The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

          
The Complexity of Modern Devices

          
Human-Centered Design

          
Fundamental Principles of Interaction

          
The System Image

          
The Paradox of Technology

          
The Design Challenge

2
        
The Psychology of Everyday Actions

          
How People Do Things: The Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation

          
The Seven Stages of Action

          
Human Thought: Mostly Subconscious

          
Human Cognition and Emotion

          
The Seven Stages of Action and the Three Levels of Processing

          
People as Storytellers

          
Blaming the Wrong Things

          
Falsely Blaming Yourself

          
The Seven Stages of Action: Seven Fundamental Design Principles

3
        
Knowledge in the Head and in the World

          
Precise Behavior from Imprecise Knowledge

          
Memory Is Knowledge in the Head

          
The Structure of Memory

          
Approximate Models: Memory in the Real World

          
Knowledge in the Head

          
The Tradeoff Between Knowledge in the World and in the Head

          
Memory in Multiple Heads, Multiple Devices

          
Natural Mapping

          
Culture and Design: Natural Mappings Can Vary with Culture

4
        
Knowing What to Do: Constraints Discoverability, and Feedback

          
Four Kinds of Constraints: Physical, Cultural, Semantic, and Logical

          
Applying Affordances, Signifiers, and Constraints to Everyday Objects

          
Constraints That Force the Desired Behavior

          
Conventions, Constraints, and Affordances

          
The Faucet: A Case History of Design

          
Using Sound as Signifiers

5
        
Human Error? No, Bad Design

          
Understanding Why There Is Error

          
Deliberate Violations

          
Two Types of Errors: Slips and Mistakes

          
The Classification of Slips

          
The Classification of Mistakes

          
Social and Institutional Pressures

          
Reporting Error

          
Detecting Error

          
Designing for Error

          
When Good Design Isn't Enough

          
Resilience Engineering

          
The Paradox of Automation

          
Design Principles for Dealing with Error

6
        
Design Thinking

          
Solving the Correct Problem

          
The Double-Diamond Model of Design

          
The Human-Centered Design Process

          
What I Just Told You? It Doesn't Really Work That Way

          
The Design Challenge

          
Complexity Is Good; It Is Confusion That Is Bad

          
Standardization and Technology

          
Deliberately Making Things Difficult

          
Design: Developing Technology for People

7
        
Design in the World of Business

          
Competitive Forces

          
New Technologies Force Change

          
How Long Does It Take to Introduce a New Product?

          
Two Forms of Innovation: Incremental and Radical

          
The Design of Everyday Things: 1988–2038

          
The Future of Books

          
The Moral Obligations of Design

          
Design Thinking and Thinking About Design

Acknowledgments

General Readings and Notes

References

Index

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION

In the first edition of this book, then called POET,
The Psychology of Everyday Things
, I started with these lines: “This is the book I always wanted to write, except I didn't know it.” Today I do know it, so I simply say, “This is the book I always wanted to write.”

This is a starter kit for good design. It is intended to be enjoyable and informative for everyone: everyday people, technical people, designers, and nondesigners. One goal is to turn readers into great observers of the absurd, of the poor design that gives rise to so many of the problems of modern life, especially of modern technology. It will also turn them into observers of the good, of the ways in which thoughtful designers have worked to make our lives easier and smoother. 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, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.

Along the way I lay out the fundamental principles required to eliminate problems, to turn our everyday stuff into enjoyable products that provide pleasure and satisfaction. The combination of good observation skills and good design principles is a powerful
tool, one that everyone can use, even people who are not professional designers. Why? Because we are all designers in the sense that all of us deliberately design our lives, our rooms, and the way we do things. We can also design workarounds, ways of overcoming the flaws of existing devices. So, one purpose of this book is to give back your control over the products in your life: to know how to select usable and understandable ones, to know how to fix those that aren't so usable or understandable.