![]() | It has been suggested that Gulf of execution be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2023. |
![]() | It has been suggested that Gulf of evaluation be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2023. |
![]() | It has been suggested that Seven stages of action be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2023. |
![]() First edition (original title) | |
Author | Donald Norman |
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Original title | The Psychology of Everyday Things |
Language | English |
Genre | Design, Psychology, Business |
Publisher | Basic Books |
Publication date | 1988 |
Publication place | United States |
ISBN | 978-0-465-06710-7 |
620.8'2—dc20 |
The Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling [1] book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman. Originally published in 1988 with the title The Psychology of Everyday Things, it is often referred to by the initialisms POET and DOET. A new preface was added in 2002 and a revised and expanded edition was published in 2013. [2]
The book's premise is that design serves as the communication between object and user, and discusses how to optimize that conduit of communication in order to make the experience of using the object pleasurable. It argues that although people are often keen to blame themselves when objects appear to malfunction, it is not the fault of the user but rather the lack of intuitive guidance that should be present in the design.
Norman uses case studies to describe the psychology behind what he deems good and bad design, and proposes design principles. The book spans several disciplines including behavioral psychology, ergonomics, and design practice.
In the book, Norman introduced the term affordance as it applied to design, [3] : 282 borrowing James J. Gibson's concept from ecological psychology. [1] In the revised edition of his book in 2013, he also introduced the concept of signifiers to clarify his definition of affordances. [4] Examples of affordances are doors that can be pushed or pulled. These are the possible interactions between an object and its user. Examples of corresponding signifiers are flat plates on doors meant to be pushed, small finger-size push-buttons, and long and rounded bars we intuitively use as handles. As Norman used the term, a door affords pushing or pulling, and the plate or button signals that it is meant to be pushed, while the bar or handle signals pulling. [3] : 282–3 [5] : 9 Norman discussed door handles at length. [6] [5] : 10, 87–92
He also popularized the term user-centered design , which he had previously referred to in User-Centered System Design in 1986. [7] He used the term to describe design based on the needs of the user, leaving aside, what he deemed secondary issues like aesthetics. User-centered design involves simplifying the structure of tasks, making things visible, getting the mapping right, exploiting the powers of constraint, designing for error, explaining affordances, and seven stages of action. He went to great lengths to define and explain these terms in detail, giving examples following and going against the advice given and pointing out the consequences.
Other topics of the book include:
After a group of industrial designers felt affronted after reading an early draft, Norman rewrote the book to make it more sympathetic to the profession. [1]
The book was originally published with the title The Psychology of Everyday Things. In his preface to the 2002 edition, Norman has stated that his academic peers liked the original title, but believed the new title better conveyed the content of the book and better attracted interested readers. [8] : ix
Donald Arthur Norman is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego. He is best known for his books on design, especially The Design of Everyday Things. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the fields of design, usability engineering, and cognitive science, and has shaped the development of the field of cognitive systems engineering. He is a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, along with Jakob Nielsen. He is also an IDEO fellow and a member of the Board of Trustees of IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. He also holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. Norman is an active Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he spends two months a year teaching.
Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a software can be used by specified consumers to achieve quantified objectives with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a quantified context of use.
In computer science, human–computer interaction, and interaction design, direct manipulation is an approach to interfaces which involves continuous representation of objects of interest together with rapid, reversible, and incremental actions and feedback. As opposed to other interaction styles, for example, the command language, the intention of direct manipulation is to allow a user to manipulate objects presented to them, using actions that correspond at least loosely to manipulation of physical objects. An example of direct manipulation is resizing a graphical shape, such as a rectangle, by dragging its corners or edges with a mouse.
User-centered design (UCD) or user-driven development (UDD) is a framework of processes in which usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow of a product, service or process are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. These tests are conducted with or without actual users during each stage of the process from requirements, pre-production models and post production, completing a circle of proof back to and ensuring that "development proceeds with the user as the center of focus." Such testing is necessary as it is often very difficult for the designers of a product to understand intuitively the experiences of first-time users, and what each user's learning curve may look like. User-centered design is based on the understanding of a user, their demands, priorities and experiences and when used, is known to lead to an increased product usefulness and usability as it delivers satisfaction to the user. User-centered design applies cognitive science principles to create intuitive, efficient products by understanding users' mental processes, behaviors, and needs.
Interaction design, often abbreviated as IxD, is "the practice of designing interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services." While interaction design has an interest in form, its main area of focus rests on behavior. Rather than analyzing how things are, interaction design synthesizes and imagines things as they could be. This element of interaction design is what characterizes IxD as a design field, as opposed to a science or engineering field.
A skeuomorph is a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were necessary in the original. Skeuomorphs are typically used to make something new feel familiar in an effort to speed understanding and acclimation. They employ elements that, while essential to the original object, serve no pragmatic purpose in the new system. Examples include pottery embellished with imitation rivets reminiscent of similar pots made of metal and a software calendar that imitates the appearance of binding on a paper desk calendar.
In psychology, affordance is what the environment offers the individual. In design, affordance has a narrower meaning, it refers to possible actions that an actor can readily perceive.
Emotional Design is both the title of a book by Donald Norman and of the concept it represents.
Motion graphic design, also known as motion design, is a subset of graphic design which combines design with animation and/or filmmaking, video production, and filmic techniques. Examples include kinetic typography and graphics used in film and television opening sequences, and station identification logos of some television channels.
Social affordance is a type of affordance. It refers to the properties of an object or environment that permit social actions. Social affordance is most often used in the context of a social technology such as Wiki, Chat and Facebook applications and refers to sociotechnical affordances. Social affordances emerge from the coupling between the behavioral and cognitive capacities of a given organism and the objective properties of its environment.
Affective design describes the design of products, services, and user interfaces that aim to evoke intended emotional responses from consumers, ultimately improving customer satisfaction. It is often regarded within the domain of technology interaction and computing, in which emotional information is communicated to the computer from the user in a natural and comfortable way. The computer processes the emotional information and adapts or responds to try to improve the interaction in some way. The notion of affective design emerged from the field of human–computer interaction (HCI), specifically from the developing area of affective computing. Affective design serves an important role in user experience (UX) as it contributes to the improvement of the user's personal condition in relation to the computing system. Decision-making, brand loyalty, and consumer connections have all been associated with the integration of affective design. The goals of affective design focus on providing users with an optimal, proactive experience. Amongst overlap with several fields, applications of affective design include ambient intelligence, human–robot interaction, and video games.
User experience design, upon which is the centralized requirements for "User Experience Design Research", defines the experience a user would go through when interacting with a company, its services, and its products. User experience design is a user centered design approach because it considers the user's experience when using a product or platform. Research, data analysis, and test results drive design decisions in UX design rather than aesthetic preferences and opinions, for which is known as UX Design Research. Unlike user interface design, which focuses solely on the design of a computer interface, UX design encompasses all aspects of a user's perceived experience with a product or website, such as its usability, usefulness, desirability, brand perception, and overall performance. UX design is also an element of the customer experience (CX), and encompasses all design aspects and design stages that are around a customer's experience.
The semantic turn refers to a paradigm shift in the design of artifacts – industrial, graphic, informational, architectural, and social – from an emphasis on how artifacts ought to function to what they mean to those affected by them – semantics being a concern for meaning. It provides a new foundation for professional design, a detailed design discourse, codifications of proven methods, compelling scientific justifications of its products, and a clear identity for professional designers working within a network of their stakeholders.
Seven stages of action is a term coined by the usability consultant Donald Norman. The phrase appears in chapter two of his book The Design of Everyday Things, describing the psychology of a person performing a task.
The term natural mapping comes from proper and natural arrangements for the relations between controls and their movements to the outcome from such action into the world. The real function of natural mappings is to reduce the need for any information from a user’s memory to perform a task. This term is widely used in the areas of human-computer interaction (HCI) and interactive design. Leveraging the concept of mapping helps bridge the gulf of evaluation and the gulf of execution, which refer to the gap between the user's understanding of the system and the actual state of the system and the gap between the user's goal and how to achieve that goal with the interface, respectively. By mapping controls to mirror the real world, the user will find it easier to create a mental model of the control and use the control to achieve their desired intention.
An interaction technique, user interface technique or input technique is a combination of hardware and software elements that provides a way for computer users to accomplish a single task. For example, one can go back to the previously visited page on a Web browser by either clicking a button, pressing a key, performing a mouse gesture or uttering a speech command. It is a widely used term in human-computer interaction. In particular, the term "new interaction technique" is frequently used to introduce a novel user interface design idea.
Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design technologies that allow humans to interact with computers in novel ways. A device that allows interaction between human being and a computer is known as a "Human-computer Interface (HCI)".
Activity-centered design (ACD) is an extension of the Human-centered design paradigm in interaction design. ACD features heavier emphasis on the activities that a user would perform with a given piece of technology. ACD has its theoretical underpinnings in activity theory, from which activities can be defined as actions taken by a user to achieve a goal.
Hardware interface design (HID) is a cross-disciplinary design field that shapes the physical connection between people and technology in order to create new hardware interfaces that transform purely digital processes into analog methods of interaction. It employs a combination of filmmaking tools, software prototyping, and electronics breadboarding.
Behavioural design is a sub-category of design, which is concerned with how design can shape, or be used to influence human behaviour. All approaches of design for behaviour change acknowledge that artifacts have an important influence on human behaviour and/or behavioural decisions. They strongly draw on theories of behavioural change, including the division into personal, behavioural, and environmental characteristics as drivers for behaviour change. Areas in which design for behaviour change has been most commonly applied include health and wellbeing, sustainability, safety and social context, as well as crime prevention.