This book was assigned in a UX/UI college class, and I'm not done with it but I've read enough to know I hate it and honestly can't believe my school treats this book like it's the bible of design or something. I'm used to academic topis being studied with rigor, and this book is 95% one person sharing his opinion and experience (with a few mentions of studies) . In other words it's just anecdotal. And it reads like a crotchety old man who complains about everything. Like, he can find the problem with every design, but doesn't spend half as much time talking about good design.
To summarize, I find this book weak regarding the validity of it since it's just one person's opinion, it creates the experience of just listening to someone complains about everything, and doesn't leave me feeling like I'm learning any useful design skills.
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The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition Paperback – Illustrated, 5 November 2013
by
Don Norman
(Author)
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Product details
- ASIN : 0465050654
- Language : English
- Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780465050659
- ISBN-13 : 978-0465050659
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3,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 6 in Industrial Design Studies
- 15 in Applied Psychology
- 43 in Professions & Industrial Sectors
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Choice "Even classics can be updated and improved... Highly recommended." "This book changed the field of design. As the pace of technological change accelerates, the principles in this book are increasingly important. The new examples and ideas about design and product development make it essential reading."--Patrick Whitney, Dean, Institute of Design, and Steelcase/Robert C. Pew Professor of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology "Twenty-five years ago The Design of Everyday Things was instrumental in orienting my approach to design. With this latest revised and expanded edition, Don Norman has given me a host of new ideas to explore as well as reminding me of the fundamental principles of great and meaningful design. Part operating manual for designers and part manifesto on the power of designing for people, The Design of Everyday Things is even more relevant today than it was when first published."--Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO, and author of Change by Design
About the Author
Donald A. Norman is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an executive consulting firm that helps companies produce human-centered products and services. He is Breed Professor of Design Emeritus at Northwestern University and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, where he was founding chair of the Department of Cognitive Science and chair of the Department of Psychology. He has served as Vice President of Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group, and his many books include Emotional Design, The Design of Future Things, and most recently, Living with Complexity.
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Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon.com
Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars
393 reviews

Conure fan
1.0 out of 5 stars
Can't stand this book
15 September 2018 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
150 people found this helpful

Ilya Korobkov
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's great, just stop calling it 'the UX Bible'
18 April 2020 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
A lot of people voice their disappointment with this book, because they expect it to be an in-depth, authoritative guide written for professional designers, and it turns out to be something else. Let me tell you a little secret, design people: it's not "the design bible", it's not "the UX bible", it's not anything bible. It's more of a religious pamphlet aimed at laymen who don't normally think about design in their everyday work, to bring them the gospel of good design practices in an extremely condensed form.
Developers love this book, because it's good (duh!) and also because it comes with recommendations from several luminaries in the field, most notably Jeff Atwood, the co-founder of StackOverflow. I'm no exception. It helped shift my focus from making software that does its job well, to making software that helps its users do their jobs well. It explains in very simple terms why you should care about how users experience and interact with the things you make and how to start thinking about making their interactions more satisfying and rewarding. It also walks you through the typical interaction cycle, from the idea of action that user wants to perform, to the interpretation of feedback they receive; it is a tremendous help when you are trying to 'debug' the interactions and figure out the exact reason why users find your design distracting, irritating or counter-intuitive.
There are sections clarifying the terms you might have heard elsewhere but don't know exactly what they mean (A/B testing, root cause analysis, iterative vs. waterfall approach) or how they might help you improve your design. There is a particularly illuminating chapter explaining why fridge controls and stove controls (among many other things) come in so many different and incompatible designs, how companies are trying to solve this problem with standardization and why standards sometimes create more problems than they solve.
What else? It's also short, well-written and entertaining. The jokes are rare, poignant, and usually delivered with a deadpan snark. To give you an example,
"The typewriter was a radical innovation that had a dramatic impact upon office and home writing. It helped provide a role for women in offices as typists and secretaries, which led to the redefinition of the job of secretary to be a dead end rather than the first step toward an executive position".
Nice, huh?
To summarize: buy this book if you want to know more about design in general and/or become a better designer to complement your other skills. Don't buy this book if you expect a huge how-to manual or a cookbook aimed at experienced designers.
Developers love this book, because it's good (duh!) and also because it comes with recommendations from several luminaries in the field, most notably Jeff Atwood, the co-founder of StackOverflow. I'm no exception. It helped shift my focus from making software that does its job well, to making software that helps its users do their jobs well. It explains in very simple terms why you should care about how users experience and interact with the things you make and how to start thinking about making their interactions more satisfying and rewarding. It also walks you through the typical interaction cycle, from the idea of action that user wants to perform, to the interpretation of feedback they receive; it is a tremendous help when you are trying to 'debug' the interactions and figure out the exact reason why users find your design distracting, irritating or counter-intuitive.
There are sections clarifying the terms you might have heard elsewhere but don't know exactly what they mean (A/B testing, root cause analysis, iterative vs. waterfall approach) or how they might help you improve your design. There is a particularly illuminating chapter explaining why fridge controls and stove controls (among many other things) come in so many different and incompatible designs, how companies are trying to solve this problem with standardization and why standards sometimes create more problems than they solve.
What else? It's also short, well-written and entertaining. The jokes are rare, poignant, and usually delivered with a deadpan snark. To give you an example,
"The typewriter was a radical innovation that had a dramatic impact upon office and home writing. It helped provide a role for women in offices as typists and secretaries, which led to the redefinition of the job of secretary to be a dead end rather than the first step toward an executive position".
Nice, huh?
To summarize: buy this book if you want to know more about design in general and/or become a better designer to complement your other skills. Don't buy this book if you expect a huge how-to manual or a cookbook aimed at experienced designers.
49 people found this helpful

M. Killebrew
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is a book that could be a pamphlet
20 August 2018 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
A pamphlet may be able to be reduced to a single-page flow chart. It's a Norman book in the same way a terrible door is a Norman door. That assumes its purpose is to inform the reader in a succinct manner, and not generate money for the author who mentions his other works many times throughout. It's exceptionally good at generating revenue; maybe I'm applying his solution to the wrong problem, the correct problem being 'I need money for a boat.'
37 people found this helpful

Dan
4.0 out of 5 stars
Conceptually interesting, somewhat poorly written.
15 May 2017 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
The overview of design principles described in the first half of the book are interesting. I certainly became more aware of the kinds of poor design choices outlined and certainly learned a few things that will be helpful in my communications and systems development role at work.
The explanations of the psychology behind product interaction are, to me, poorly organized and explained. Further, if you've read any psychology or behavioral economics before, there's little to be learned here.
Finally, the writing itself is fairly poor. I read nonfiction almost exclusively, so I don't think it's the technical nature of the content; it's just not very engaging. The personal anecdotes, as other reviews have noted, often feel forced and a little self-congratulatory. A better editor would have helped, too. There were quite a few instances of small annoyances such as using "less" where "fewer" was needed, or an overabundance of "as a result" towards the end.
The explanations of the psychology behind product interaction are, to me, poorly organized and explained. Further, if you've read any psychology or behavioral economics before, there's little to be learned here.
Finally, the writing itself is fairly poor. I read nonfiction almost exclusively, so I don't think it's the technical nature of the content; it's just not very engaging. The personal anecdotes, as other reviews have noted, often feel forced and a little self-congratulatory. A better editor would have helped, too. There were quite a few instances of small annoyances such as using "less" where "fewer" was needed, or an overabundance of "as a result" towards the end.
44 people found this helpful

julia johnston
3.0 out of 5 stars
This is so annoying to me I don't know if I can finish ...
9 March 2017 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
So far, the content is informative and interesting. However, I would think a book about design would be well designed. The section headings on the left sided pages are so far to the right I have to crack the spine all the way open to read many of them. This is so annoying to me I don't know if I can finish reading it. The small, grainy graphics are also dismaying. It's difficult to have confidence in the author's expertise when so little thought is put into the presentation.
45 people found this helpful