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.
The goal is to produce a great product, one that is successful, and that customers love.
The frequent traveler is continually confronted with this kind of situation: the behavior that is appropriate in one place is inappropriate in another, even in situations that appear to be identical....
We must design for the way people behave,not for how we would wish them to behave.
We need to remove the word failure from our vocabulary, replacing it instead with learning experience. To fail is to learn: we learn more from our failures than from our successes.
The traditional measures of STM capacity range from five to seven, but from a practical point of view, it is best to think of it as holding only three to five items.
Designers need to focus their attention on the cases where things go wrong, not just on when things work as planned.
It is amazing how often people solve the problem before them without bothering to question it.
Modern technology can be complex, but complexity by itself is neither good nor bad: it is confusion that is bad. Forget the complaints against complexity; instead, complain about confusion.
A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem.
Customer research is a tradeoff: deep insights on real needs from a tiny set of people, versus broad, reliable purchasing data from a wide range and large number of people. We need both. Designers und...
It is when the disciplines operate independently of one another that major clashes and deficiencies occur.
Poor feedback can be worse than no feedback at all, because it is distracting, uninformative, and in many cases irritating and anxiety-provoking.
Simplification is as much in the mind as it is in the device.
When I used to work for the local government organisation we HAD TO change our Passwords every three months. To ensure I could remember it, I used to write it on a Post-It note and stick it above my d...
Violation of cultural conventions can completely disrupt an interaction.
Most expert, skilled behavior works this way, whether it is playing tennis or a musical instrument, or doing mathematics and science. Experts minimize the need for conscious reasoning. Philosopher
When people fail to follow these bizarre, secret rules, and the machine does the wrong thing, its operators are blamed for not understanding the machine, for not following its rigid specifications. Wi...
Some things can only be solved by massive cultural changes, which probably means they will never be solved.
Engineers and designers simultaneously know too much and too little. They know too much about the technology and too little about how other people live their live and do their activities.
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