Site uses cookies to provide basic functionality.

OK
Query
Tags
Author
Link Quote Stars Tags Author
ef5aa9d 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. Donald A. Norman
0ea9ed9 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. Donald A. Norman
c65d126 Because we are all designers in the sense that all of us deliberately design our lives, our rooms, and the way we do things. Donald A. Norman
4e7ddc2 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. Donald A. Norman
c8e7858 The best products come from ignoring these competing voices and instead focusing on the true needs of the people who use the product. Donald A. Norman
fd67482 Engineers and businesspeople are trained to solve problems. Designers are trained to discover the real problems. A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem. Donald A. Norman
d6a1b07 Great designers produce pleasurable experiences. Experience: note the word. Engineers tend not to like it; it is too subjective. But when I ask them about their favorite automobile or test equipment, they will smile delightedly as they discuss the fit and finish, the sensation of power during acceleration, their ease of control while shifting or steering, or the wonderful feel of the knobs and switches on the instrument. Those are experienc.. Donald A. Norman
7e2bd11 The next time you can't immediately figure out the shower control in a hotel room or have trouble using an unfamiliar television set or kitchen appliance, remember that the problem is in the design. Ask yourself where the problem lies. Donald A. Norman
ad100a9 How does the product manager keep the entire team on schedule despite the apparent random and divergent methods of designers? Encourage their free exploration, but hold them to the schedule (and budget) constraints. There is nothing like a firm deadline to get creative minds to reach convergence. Donald A. Norman
7b441f8 Design is concerned with how things work, how they are controlled, and the nature of the interaction between people and technology. When done well, the results are brilliant, pleasurable products. When done badly, the products are unusable, leading to great frustration and irritation. Or they might be usable, but force us to behave the way the product wishes rather than as we wish. Donald A. Norman
033c3b2 Customer research is a tradeoff: deep insights on real needs from a tiny set of people, versus broad, reliable purchasing data from a wide range and large number of people. We need both. Designers understand what people really need. Marketing understands what people actually buy. These are not the same things, which is why both approaches are required: marketing and design researchers should work together in complementary teams. Donald A. Norman
95b7153 When many people all have the same problem, shouldn't another cause be found? 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. Donald A. Norman
f6a0e13 When a bridge collapses, we analyze the incident to find the causes of the collapse and reformulate the design rules to ensure that form of accident will never happen again. When we discover that electronic equipment is malfunctioning because it is responding to unavoidable electrical noise, we redesign the circuits to be more tolerant of the noise. But when an accident is thought to be caused by people, we blame them and then continue to d.. Donald A. Norman
8f9c3df Consistency in design is virtuous. It means that lessons learned with one system transfer readily to others. On the whole, consistency is to be followed. If a new way of doing things is only slightly better than the old, it is better to be consistent. But if there is to be a change, everybody has to change. Mixed systems are confusing to everyone. When a new way of doing things is vastly superior to another, then the merits of change outwei.. Donald A. Norman
312502a Most industrial accidents are caused by human error: estimates range between 75 and 95 percent. How is it that so many people are so incompetent? Answer: They aren't. It's a design problem. Donald A. Norman
1758ee9 First, most accidents do not have a single cause: there are usually multiple things that went wrong, multiple events that, had any one of them not occurred, would have prevented the accident. Donald A. Norman
c66ed98 The debate is not useful. All groups are necessary. Customer research is a tradeoff: deep insights on real needs from a tiny set of people, versus broad, reliable purchasing data from a wide range and large number of people. We need both. Designers understand what people really need. Marketing understands what people actually buy. These are not the same things, which is why both approaches are required: marketing and design researchers shou.. Donald A. Norman
14369f4 Getting the specification of the thing to be defined is one of the most difficult parts of the design, so much so that the HCD principle is to avoid specifying the problem as long as possible but instead to iterate upon repeated approximations. This is done through rapid tests of ideas, and after each test modifying the approach and the problem definition. The results can be products that truly meet the needs of people. Doing HCD within the.. Donald A. Norman
2b3068b To the designer, reflection is perhaps the most important of the levels of processing. Reflection is conscious, and the emotions produced at this level are the most protracted: those that assign agency and cause, such as guilt and blame or praise and pride. Reflective responses are part of our memory of events. Memories last far longer than the immediate experience or the period of usage, which are the domains of the visceral and behavioral.. Donald A. Norman
d312f94 Our strengths are in our flexibility and creativity, in coming up with solutions to novel problems. We are creative and imaginative, not mechanical and precise. Machines require precision and accuracy; people don't. And we are particularly bad at providing precise and accurate inputs. So why are we always required to do so? Why do we put the requirements of machines above those of people? Donald A. Norman
f9370b1 The mind is more difficult to comprehend than actions. Most of us start by believing we already understand both human behavior and the human mind. After all, we are all human: we have all lived with ourselves all of our lives, and we like to think we understand ourselves. But the truth is, we don't. Most of human behavior is a result of subconscious processes. We are unaware of them. As a result, many of our beliefs about how people behave-.. Donald A. Norman
539992f Leonardo: <>, Walter Isaacson
389fb59 safe and then sneak over to the Sarah Mlynowski
910c74a I wanted to be a doctor, but, well, we don't have as much money as my mother pretends. Dad said he could manage if that's what I really wanted, but my mother said it was too difficult for a woman to get into medical school. Ellen Raskin
03ee0b5 I have discovered motives, my own and everyone else's, to be impenetrable. Alex Miller (writer)
81df94d Ese aperitivo que es el hambre contribuia a que todo tuviera mejor sabor aun. hambre Jean M. Auel
8593fd1 And to be like me, he had to be sour, bitter, hating everyone, and suspicious of their hidden motives. V.C. Andrews
2f03ecd This foreign one has no fear of anything in her, although she is not beautiful as the Fourth Lady was beautiful. She does not trouble herself. She accepts as her right the interest of men. She makes no effort to win their glances. She seems to say, "This is I. I am as you see me. I do not care to be otherwise." Pearl S. Buck
23e5ccb She is the living memorial as to why Scots want their own parliament. Alex Salmond
e8b672d It is not that we cannot believe," he replied. "It is that we do not want anything enough. Faith rises from necessity. We have no necessity." Pearl S. Buck
fabcbcf and when he was weary he lay down upon his land and he slept and the health of the earth spread into his flesh and he was healed of his sickness. Pearl S. Buck
ac15fdb This seems right to them today and that tomorrow and they do not know that one man's mind cannot say what is the true right for another. No, in their pride of a little learning they rush out to do evil Pearl S. Buck
f6858c2 Am I miffed now? No! It's the best thing that could have happened. We were saved! We were saved! Alex Salmond
0ac46d5 El macho de la especie nace sabiendo todo lo que es malo V.C. Andrews
c4fad4c Y cuando ha sido justa la vida, Cathy? V.C. Andrews
636f845 Dealing with the Liberals, it was like trying to grab quicksilver. Alex Salmond
a773a51 door frame. P.J. Parrish
9804ef4 The wind doth blow today, my love, And a few small drops of rain; I never had but one true-love; In cold grave she was lain. I'll do as much for my true-love As any young man may; I'll sit and mourn all at her grave For a twelvemonth and a day. The P.J. Parrish
63513a2 You're emotionally constipated and it's messed up your head and now you're transferring your anger. P.J. Parrish
f690ac7 box. P.J. Parrish
5044cc9 snow-covered beach, he stopped. P.J. Parrish
81e4bea I think that's been a good kick of the ball. Alex Salmond
69fb920 It is unfinished business. Alex Salmond
d09df76 I lay on my back and stared up at that unseeing, uncaring sky. I doubted God lived up there; I doubted heaven was up there, too. V.C. Andrews