About the book
Cognitive scientist and usability engineer Don Norman argues that when people struggle with a door, a light switch or an oven burner, the fault lies with design that ignores users rather than with the users themselves. Through case studies he sets out the psychology behind good and bad design, drawing on behavioral psychology, ergonomics and design practice. He brought the term affordance into design and popularized user-centered design: making things visible, getting the mapping right, using constraints and designing for error. He also describes seven stages of action, four of execution and three of evaluation. The book first appeared as The Psychology of Everyday Things, and a revised and expanded edition added the idea of signifiers.
Kapwing co-founder Julia Enthoven credits it with informing product sense and decisions about UX, and Dependabot co-founder Grey Baker said it has helped him think through design problems ever since.
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This book has 4 recommendations
Julia Enthoven (Co-Founder/Kapwing)
For people interested in designing or building software products: The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman and The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen. Both books have informed my product sense and helped me make decisions about great UX.
Kaci Lambe (Writer, Photographer, Designer)
These three books are about how people actually use design in their lives. They helped me understand this very basic idea: There are no dumb users, only bad designers. Take the time to create based on how your design will be interacted with. Test it. Iterate. That's how you become a good designer.
Grey Baker (Co-Founder/Dependabot)
I mainly read to decompress and change my state of mind, so it’s hard to point to an insight I read that helped me. Reading fiction has pulled me out of a bad mood more times than I can count, though, and always reenergises me to attack problems that had stumped me again.
That said, I read and loved Norman Norman’s “The Design of Everyday Things”, and it’s helped me think through design problems ever since.
Marius Ciuchete Paun (Web designer)
Question: Was there a moment, specifically, when something you read in a book helped you?
Answer: Yes there was. In fact, I can remember two separate sentences from two different books:
The first one comes from “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman. It says: “great design will help people figure out what actions are possible without the need for labels or instructions”
The second one comes from “Don't Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. It gives the following advice: "Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left."
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Julia Enthoven, Kaci Lambe, Grey Baker, Marius Ciuchete Paun
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Appears in collections
- Best web design books recommended by professionals and entrepreneurs
- Best Books for Artists – A Business Focused List
- Best Psychology Books
Sources
- Julia Enthoven, Co-Founder of Kapwing, Sets Up Her Reading List at the Beginning of Each Year
- Kaci (Hampton) Lambe and the Books That Inspired Her to Become an Author
- Grey Baker, Co-Founder of Dependabot, Turns to Reading to Change His State of Mind
- How Web Designer Marius Ciuchete Paun Turned from Struggling-Reader to Audible-Devourer