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The Design of Everyday Things | 
 enlarge | Author: Don Norman
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £6.01
You Save: £3.98 (40%)
Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 2508
Media: Paperback
Edition: Basic Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0465067107
Dewey Decimal Number: 620.82
EAN: 9780465067107
ASIN: 0465067107
Publication Date: August 29, 2002
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Extremely Recommended April 9, 2008
Anyone doing any kind of interface design, or in any way interested in the way people interact with technology should read this book.
Industrial design in a nutshell January 11, 2008
Dome-headed engineering professors call it "human factors engineering," "interaction design" or "usability engineering," but the purpose of this strangely-named discipline is far simpler than these appellations suggest: to make everyday items do what users expect them to do. Donald Norman has been thinking about usability issues longer than almost anyone and has insights commensurate with his experience. Norman knows how both people and machines work (he has degrees in psychology and engineering). More importantly, he knows how to bridge the gulf between the human mind and the devices the mind wants to use, from toasters to telephones to teapots. In this classic, he provides a few simple precepts and many wonderful examples showing how to design the most important component of any technology - the user's experience. While some of Norman's examples are a little long in the tooth (he discusses VCRs, not DVDs), we find that the principles he describes in this friendly book are still sprightly almost 20 years after their initial publication.
Nice Argument for Usability, But Misses the Application May 26, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
"The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald A. Norman is said to be one of those great usability books. I bought mine at a major usability conference, believing the hype. My conclusion: Useful, but overhyped.
Norman takes a theme that says, "Look at history and you will see how the objects we use daily are sensible and functional. Now, design websites and software likewise," and develops a complete book.
Rats. I gave it all away. Now you do not need to buy the book, nor read any its 257 pages.
Really, that's more or less all there is to the book.
It is easy to read, but, in the end, becomes repetitive and is deficient in assisting the reader with application. It points out a problem we need to understand, but offers no solution. It is worth reading, but lacks as an instructional tool.
For the dense-headed, or for someone who has never considered the arguments for thinking about function before form, the book is tremendously useful. Example after example is presented is simple terms so that readers will see that merely having a cool website is not enough.
Where the book does not meet the mark is in the transferring the ideas into something modern, practical, and, in the case of we communications people, websites. What starts with a brilliant exposition about devices being useful ends where it started.
Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com
Very good, but dated April 19, 2006
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
It's an exceptional book, so why have I given it only 4 stars?
Certainly not the books fault, but this book does tend to get recommended to students as the definitive book for software interface design.
The book is quite dated, being just a renamed reprint of 1989 book "The Psychology of Everyday Things", identical content, except with a new foreword.
The insight into the flawed design of everyday objects is amazing, but could have been so much better if instead of just updating the foreword new chapters were added dealing with modern issues (computers, satellite tv, mobile phones, etc).
Reading this book will still make high tech designers better, but don't expect it to be as relevant to you as it was to your lecturer who read it 17 years ago.
 Finding Problems with Everyday Things December 22, 2003
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book was a required textbook for design module in my BSc course. It's a very interesting read, and you'll enjoy Mr Norman's examples and explanations of why some things work well and others don't. He explains many design principles such as 'mapping' and 'feedback', and their importance is made made apparent though his many examples and case studies. In general the content of the book is very relevant.The tone of the book, unfortunately, is very negative. Admittedly, it is easier to find problems than impart praise. It is nevertheless better to teach via good examples. Mr Norman seems to get great pleasure from pointing out when some appliance doesn't meet one of his principles. Perhaps he's still bitter about a bad childhood experience with a badly designed toaster... Although the content is revelant, it is not well organised. There should at least be a distinct section of the book dedicated to each principle. Instead, the author introduces some principles in point form, and others elsewhere in the text. This makes studying especially difficult, as you spend much of your time making sure you've found all the revelant principles. For a book on design, I am dissapointed to see that it is more difficult to use than it should be. Mr Norman, as per your request on the last line of the book, here's a weed 0>-,'--
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