Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.
Design is concerned with how things work, how they are controlled, and the nature of the interaction between people and technology.
Cultural constraints are likely to change with time.
Conventions are actually a form of cultural constraint, usually associated with how people behave. Some conventions determine what activities should be done; others prohibit or discourage actions. But...
Best mapping: Controls are mounted directly on the item to be controlled. • Second-best mapping: Controls are as close as possible to the object to be controlled. • Third-best mapping:...
Because retrieval is a reconstructive process, it can be erroneous. We may reconstruct events the way we would prefer to remember them, rather than the way we experienced them. It is relatively easy t...
Basically, it means that when searching for the reason, even after you have found one, do not stop: ask why that was the case. And then ask why again. Keep asking until you have uncovered the true und...
Ask Why? as many times as may be necessary to get to the root cause of the problem and then fix it so it can never occur again.
Affordances, signifiers, mappings, and constraints can simplify our encounters with everyday objects. Failure to properly deploy these cues leads to problems.
AFTER DINNER, WITH A GREAT FLOURISH, my friend Andrew brought out a lovely leather box. Open it, he said, proudly, and tell me what you think. I opened the box. Inside was a gleaming stainless-steel s...
A usable design starts with careful observations of how the tasks being supported are actually performed, followed by a design process that results in a good fit to the actual ways the tasks get perfo...
A positive emotional state is ideal for creative thought, but it is not very well suited for getting things done. Too much, and we call the person scatterbrained, flitting from one topic to another, u...
A major cause of error is time stress. Time is often critical, especially in such places as manufacturing or chemical processing plants and hospitals. But even everyday tasks can have time pressures....
A conceptual model is an explanation, usually highly simplified, of how something works. It doesn’t have to be complete or even accurate as long as it is useful.
A conceptual model is an explanation, usually highly simplified, of how something works. It doesn’t have to be complete or even accurate as long as it is useful. The
Business that makes and sells durable goods faces a problem: As soon as everyone who wants the product has it, then there is no need for more.
When things go right, people credit their own abilities and intelligence. The onlookers do the reverse. When they see things go well for someone else, they sometimes credit the environment, or luck.
When companies try to increase sales by matching every feature of their competitors, they end up hurting themselves. After all, when products from two companies match feature by feature, there is no l...
What is natural depends upon point of view, the choice of metaphor, and therefore, the culture. The design difficulties occur when there is a switch in metaphors. Airplane
We only need to remember sufficient knowledge to let us get our tasks done. Because so much knowledge is available in the environment, it is surprising how little we need to learn. This is one reason...