First, most accidents do not have a single cause: there are usually multiple things that went wrong, multiple events that, had any one of them not occurred, would have prevented the accident.
Emotion interacts with cognition biochemically, bathing the brain with hormones, transmitted either through the bloodstream or through ducts in the brain, modifying the behavior of brain cells. Hormon...
Each culture has a set of allowable actions for social situations. Thus, in our own culture we know how to behave in a restaurant— even one we have never been to before. This is how we manage to cope...
Design is concerned with how things work, how they are controlled, and the nature of the interaction between people and technology. When done well, the results are brilliant, pleasurable products. Whe...
Cognition attempts to make sense of the world: emotion assigns value.
Cognition attempts to make sense of the world: emotion assigns value. It
Affordances determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate where the action should take place.
Affordances determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate where the action should take place. We
Why does inelegant design persist for so long? This is called the legacy problem, and it will come up several times in this book. Too many devices use the existing standard—that is the legacy. If the...
Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding.
There are two different aspects to a reminder: the signal and the message. Just as in doing an action we can distinguish between knowing what can be done and knowing how to do it, in reminding we must...
The unaided mind is surprisingly limited. It is things that make us smart. Take advantage of them.
The problem with the designs of most engineers is that they are too logical. We have to accept human behavior the way it is, not the way we would wish it to be.
The hardest part of design is getting the requirements right, which means ensuring that the right problem is being solved, as well as that the solution is appropriate. Requirements made in the abstrac...
The debate is not useful. All groups are necessary. 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...
So we push the boundaries: we stay up far longer than is natural. We try to do too many tasks at the same time. We drive faster than is safe. Most of the time we manage okay. We might even be rewarded...
So the hierarchy of goals is roughly: satisfy hunger; eat; cook; read cookbook; get more light. This is called a root cause analysis: asking Why? until the ultimate, fundamental cause of the activity...
Semantics is the study of meaning. Semantic constraints are those that rely upon the meaning of the situation to control the set of possible actions.
Root cause analysis is the name of the game: investigate the accident until the single, underlying cause is found. What this ought to mean is that when people have indeed made erroneous decisions or a...
People invariably object and complain whenever a new approach is introduced into an existing array of products and systems. Conventions are violated: new learning is required. The merits of the new sy...