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More and more often the blame is attributed to "human error." The person involved can be fined, punished, or fired. Maybe training procedures are revised. The law rests comfortably. But in my experience, human error usually is a result of poor design: it should be called system error. Humans err continually; it is an intrinsic part of our nature. System design should take this into account. Pinning the blame on the person may be a comfortab..
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Donald A. Norman |
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So we must design our machines on the assumption that people will make errors.
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Donald A. Norman |
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AFTER DINNER, WITH A GREAT FLOURISH, my friend Andrew brought out a lovely leather box. "Open it," he said, proudly, "and tell me what you think." I opened the box. Inside was a gleaming stainless-steel set of old mechanical drawing instruments: dividers, compasses, extension arms for the compasses, an assortment of points, lead holders, and pens that could be fitted onto the dividers and compasses. All that was missing was the T square, th..
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Donald A. Norman |
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e797ba2
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Why do people buy an expensive, complicated toaster when a simpler, less-expensive toaster would work just as well? Why all the buttons and controls on steering wheels and rearview mirrors? Because these are the features that people believe they want. They make a difference at the time of sale, which is when such features matter most. Why do we deliberately build things that confuse the people who use them? Answer: because the people want t..
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Donald A. Norman |
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f3b6331
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Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, calls his approach "customer obsessed." Everything is focused upon the requirements of Amazon's customers. The competition is ignored, the traditional marketing requirements are ignored. The focus is on simple, customer-driven questions: what do the customers want; how can their needs best be satisfied; what can be done better to enhance customer service and customer value? Focus on the custome..
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Donald A. Norman |
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e26c850
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The hardest part of design is getting the requirements right, which means ensuring that the right problem is being solved, as well as that the solution is appropriate. Requirements made in the abstract are invariably wrong. Requirements produced by asking people what they need are invariably wrong. Requirements are developed by watching people in their natural environment.
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Donald A. Norman |
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54ed32b
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The traditional measures of STM capacity range from five to seven, but from a practical point of view, it is best to think of it as holding only three to five items.
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Donald A. Norman |
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002c081
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Affordances determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate where the action should take place.
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Donald A. Norman |
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If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
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Donald A. Norman |
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ec74c16
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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.
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Donald A. Norman |
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29bc3eb
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How does one discover "unarticulated needs"? Certainly not by asking, not by focus groups, not by surveys or questionnaires. Who would have thought to mention the need for cup holders in a car, or on a stepladder, or on a cleaning machine? After all, coffee drinking doesn't seem to be a requirement for cleaning any more than for driving in an automobile. It is only after such enhancements are made that everyone believes them to be obvious a..
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Donald A. Norman |
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If only people would read the instructions," they say, "everything would be all right."
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Donald A. Norman |
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Good designers worry a lot about the physical feel of their products. Physical touch and feel can make a huge difference in your appreciation of their creations. Consider the delights of smooth, polished metal, or soft leather, or a soil ...
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Donald A. Norman |
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Great designers produce pleasurable experiences.
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Donald A. Norman |
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we must design our machines on the assumption that people will make errors.
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Donald A. Norman |
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3ae28af
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The solution is human-centered design (HCD), an approach that puts human needs, capabilities, and behavior first, then designs to accommodate those needs, capabilities, and ways of behaving.
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Donald A. Norman |
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1d5293c
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Good design starts with an understanding of psychology and technology. Good design requires good communication, especially from machine to person, indicating what actions are possible, what is happening, and what is about to happen.
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Donald A. Norman |
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c18e61a
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Designers need to focus their attention on the cases where things go wrong, not just on when things work as planned.
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Donald A. Norman |
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1d6a0da
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Complexity can be tamed, but it requires considerable effort to do it well. Decreasing the number of buttons and displays is not the solution. The solution is to understand the total system, to design it in a way that allows all the pieces fit nicely together, so that initial learning as well as usage are both optimal. Years ago, Larry Tesler, then a vice president of Apple, argued that the total complexity of a system is a constant: as you..
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Donald A. Norman |
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e94bdde
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An affordance is a relationship between the properties of an object and the capabilities of the agent that determine just how the object could possibly be used.
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Donald A. Norman |
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b88ab7f
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The presence of an affordance is jointly determined by the qualities of the object and the abilities of the agent that is interacting. This relational definition of affordance gives considerable difficulty to many people. We are used to thinking that properties are associated with objects. But affordance is not a property. An affordance is a relationship. Whether an affordance exists depends upon the properties of both the object and the ag..
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Donald A. Norman |
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b798e7a
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When a new way of doing things is vastly superior to another, then the merits of change outweigh the difficulty of change. Just because something is different does not mean it is bad. If we only kept to the old, we could never improve.
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Donald A. Norman |
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6373371
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Bath and kitchen faucet design ought to be simple, but can violate many design principles, including: * Visible affordances and signifiers * Discoverability * Immediacy of feedback Finally, many violate the principle of desperation: * If all else fails, standardize.
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Donald A. Norman |
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189e198
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The standards should reflect the psychological conceptual models, not the physical mechanics.
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Donald A. Norman |
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6b0828e
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Skeuomorphic is the technical term for incorporating old, familiar ideas into new technologies,
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Donald A. Norman |
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49e4af7
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the impact of competitive forces that drive the introduction of extra features, often to excess: the cause of the disease dubbed "featuritis," whose major symptom is "creeping featurism."
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Donald A. Norman |
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When people err, change the system so that type of error will be reduced or eliminated. When complete elimination is not possible, redesign to reduce the impact.
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Donald A. Norman |
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In the absence of external information, people can let their imagination run free as long as the conceptual models they develop account for the facts as they perceive them.
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Donald A. Norman |
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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.
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Donald A. Norman |
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If the system lets you make the error, it is badly designed. And if the system induces you to make the error, then it is really badly designed.
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Donald A. Norman |
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Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding. Discoverability: Is it possible to even figure out what actions are possible and where and how to perform them? Understanding: What does it all mean? How is the product supposed to be used? What do all the different controls and settings mean?
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Donald A. Norman |
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Why do people err? Because the designs focus upon the requirements of the system and the machines, and not upon the requirements of people.
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Donald A. Norman |
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6d64884
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So we push the boundaries: we stay up far longer than is natural. We try to do too many tasks at the same time. We drive faster than is safe. Most of the time we manage okay. We might even be rewarded and praised for our heroic efforts. But when things go wrong and we fail, then this same behavior is blamed and punished.
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Donald A. Norman |
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5a3fd8e
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The designs of our products and services must also follow this philosophy. So, to the designers who are reading this, let me give some advice: * Do not blame people when they fail to use your products properly. * Take people's difficulties as signifiers of where the product can be improved. * Eliminate all error messages from electronic or computer systems. Instead, provide help and guidance. * Make it possible to correct problems directly ..
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Donald A. Norman |
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The goal is to produce a great product, one that is successful, and that customers love.
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Donald A. Norman |
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The most effective way of helping people remember is to make it unnecessary.
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Donald A. Norman |
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Make something too secure, and it becomes less secure.
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Donald A. Norman |
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Design is successful only if the final product is successful--if people buy it, use it, and enjoy it, thus spreading the word. A design that people do not purchase is a failed design, no matter how great the design team might consider it.
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Donald A. Norman |
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2b53b3f
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the real problem is that numerical correlations say nothing of people's real needs, of their desires, and of the reasons for their activities. As a result, these numerical data can give a false impression of people. But the use of big data and market analytics is seductive: no travel, little expense, and huge numbers, sexy charts, and impressive statistics, all very persuasive to the executive team trying to decide which new products to dev..
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Donald A. Norman |
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a2c1a79
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Creeping featurism is the tendency to add to the number of features of a product, often extending the number beyond all reason. There is no way that a product can remain usable and understandable by the time it has all of those special-purpose features that have been added in over time.
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Donald A. Norman |
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ef5aa9d
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When companies try to increase sales by matching every feature of their competitors, they end up hurting themselves. After all, when products from two companies match feature by feature, there is no longer any reason for a customer to prefer one over another.
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Donald A. Norman |
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0ea9ed9
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People invariably object and complain whenever a new approach is introduced into an existing array of products and systems. Conventions are violated: new learning is required. The merits of the new system are irrelevant: it is the change that is upsetting.
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Donald A. Norman |
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c65d126
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Because we are all designers in the sense that all of us deliberately design our lives, our rooms, and the way we do things.
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Donald A. Norman |
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When people fail to follow these bizarre, secret rules, and the machine does the wrong thing, its operators are blamed for not understanding the machine, for not following its rigid specifications. With everyday objects, the result is frustration. With complex devices and commercial and industrial processes, the resulting difficulties can lead to accidents, injuries, and even deaths.
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Donald A. Norman |