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Complexity is acceptable as long as it is intelligible and necessary. We want to avoid needless complications.

Donald A. Norman

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Donald A. Norman
Complication
Acceptable
Complexity
Simplicity
Avoid
Necessary
Complications
Long
Intelligible
Needless

More quotes by Donald A. Norman

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If you're more susceptible to interruption, you do more out of the box thinking.
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AS for all those mistakes I make - they are on purpose - to teach you how to deal with them
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I'm not a fan of technology . I'm a fan of pedagogy, of understanding how people learn and the most effective learning methods. But technology enables some exciting changes.
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If you think the products don't match what you want from a product, don't buy it.
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As the technology matures, it becomes less and less relevant. The technology is taken for granted. Now, new customers enter the marketplace, customers who are not captivated by technology, but who instead want reliability, convenience, no fuss or bother, and low cost.
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The world is complex, and so too must be the activities that we perform. But that doesn't mean that we must live in continual frustration. No. The whole point of human-centered design is to tame complexity, to turn what would appear to be a complicated tool into one that fits the task, that is understandable, usable, enjoyable.
Donald A. Norman
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Simplification is as much in the mind as it is in the device.
Donald A. Norman
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If people keep buying poorly designed products, manufacturers and designers will think they are doing the right thing and continue as usual.
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Isn't one of your first exercises in learning how to communicate to write a description of how to tie your shoelaces? The point being that it's basically impossible to use text to show that
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When I use a direct manipulation system whether for text editing, drawing pictures, or creating and playing games I do think of myself not as using a computer but as doing the particular task. The computer is, in effect, invisible. The point cannot be overstressed: make the computer system invisible.
Donald A. Norman
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Behavioral design is all about feeling in control. Includes: usability, understanding, but also the feel.
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User experience is really the whole totality. Opening the package good example. It's the total experience that matters. And that starts from when you first hear about a product experience is more based upon memory than reality. If your memory of the product is wonderful, you will excuse all sorts of incidental things.
Donald A. Norman
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Forget the complaints against complexity instead, complain about confusion.
Donald A. Norman
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I believe that robots should only have faces if they truly need them
Donald A. Norman
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Hypertext makes a virtue out of lack of organization, allowing ideas and thoughts to be juxtaposed at will. [...] The advent of hypertext is apt to make writing much more difficult, not easier. Good writing, that is.
Donald A. Norman
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So what does a good teacher do? Create tension - but just the right amount.
Donald A. Norman
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It is relatively easy to design for the perfect cases, when everything goes right, or when all the information required is available in proper format
Donald A. Norman
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Go to the bookstore and look at how many bookshelves are filled with books trying to explain how to work the devices. We don't see shelves of books on how to use television sets, telephones, refrigerators or washing machines. Why should we for computer-based applications?
Donald A. Norman
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The major problems facing the development of products that are safer, less prone to error, and easier to use and understand are not technological: they are social and organizational.
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What makes something simple or complex? It's not the number of dials or controls or how many features it has: It is whether the person using the device has a good conceptual model of how it operates.
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