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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

Donald A. Norman

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Donald A. Norman
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More quotes by 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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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.
Donald A. Norman
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Behavioral design is all about feeling in control. Includes: usability, understanding, but also the feel.
Donald A. Norman
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We are victims of our own success. We have let technology lead the way, pushing ever faster to newer, faster, and more powerful systems, with nary a moment to rest, contemplate, and to reflect upon why, how, and for whom all this energy has been expended.
Donald A. Norman
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If you think the products don't match what you want from a product, don't buy it.
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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So what does a good teacher do? Create tension - but just the right amount.
Donald A. Norman
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In my opinion, no single design is apt to be optimal for everyone.
Donald A. Norman
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Attractive things work better When you wash and wax a car, it drives better, doesn’t it? Or at least feels like it does.
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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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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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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Forget the complaints against complexity instead, complain about confusion.
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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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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No product is an island. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences. Think through all of the stages of a product or service - from initial intentions through final reflections, from first usage to help, service, and maintenance. Make them all work together seamlessly. That's systems thinking.
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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Rule of thumb: if you think something is clever and sophisticated beware-it is probably self-indulgence.
Donald A. Norman
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I think there is a tendency in science to measure what is measurable and to decide that what you cannot measure must be uninteresting.
Donald A. Norman
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I believe that robots should only have faces if they truly need them
Donald A. Norman