Quote

When you have trouble with things—whether it's figuring out whether to push or pull a door or the arbitrary vagaries of the modern computer and electronics industries—it's not your fault. Don't blame yourself: blame the designer.

Donald A. Norman

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Donald A. Norman
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More quotes by Donald A. Norman

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Technology may change rapidly, but people change slowly. The principals [of design] come from understanding of people. They remain true forever.
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.
Donald A. Norman
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I think a successful company is one where everybody owns the same mission. Out of necessity, we divide ourselves up into discipline groups. But the goal when you are actually doing the work is to somehow forget what discipline group you are in and come together. So in that sense, nobody should own user experience everybody should own it.
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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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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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.
Donald A. Norman
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If you're more susceptible to interruption, you do more out of the box thinking.
Donald A. Norman
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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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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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Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.
Donald A. Norman
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The design of everyday things is in great danger of becoming the design of superfluous, overloaded, unnecessary things.
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.
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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In design it is important to shoe the effect of an action. ... Feedback is critical.
Donald A. Norman
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It is the duty of machines and those who design them to understand people. It is not our duty to understand the arbitrary, meaningless dictates of machines.
Donald A. Norman
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Having the best product means nothing if the people won't buy it.
Donald A. Norman
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Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right.
Donald A. Norman
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I prefer design by experts - by people who know what they are doing
Donald A. Norman
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How do you discover a need that nobody yet knows about? This is where the product breakthroughs come through.
Donald A. Norman
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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.
Donald A. Norman