this is audible Pichette audio presents the design of everyday things revised an expanded edition written by Don Norman read by Neil he'll Agurs [Music] for Julie preface to the revised edition in the first edition of this book then called poet the psychology of everyday things I started with these lines this is the book I always wanted to write except I didn't know it today I do know it so I simply say this is the book I always wanted to write this is a starter kit for good design it is intended to be enjoyable and informative for everyone every day people technical people designers and non designers one goal is to turn listeners into great observers of the absurd of the poor design that gives rise to so many of the problems of modern life especially of modern technology it will also turn them into observers of the good of the ways in which thoughtful designers have worked to make our lives easier and smoother good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible serving us without drawing attention to itself bad design on the other hand screams out its inadequacies making itself very noticeable along the way I lay out the fundamental principles required to eliminate problems to turn our everyday stuff into enjoyable products that provide pleasure and satisfaction the combination of good observation skills and good design principles is a powerful tool one that everyone can use even people who are not professional designers why because we are all designers in the sense that all of us deliberately design our lives our rooms and the way we do things we can also design workarounds ways of overcoming the flaws of existing devices so one purpose of this book is to give back your control over the products in your life to know how to select usable and understandable ones to know how to fix those that aren't so usable or understandable the first edition of this book has lived a long and healthy life its name was quickly changed to design of everyday things do it to make the title less cute more descriptive do--it has been read by the general public and by designers it has been assigned in courses and handed out as required readings in many companies now more than 20 years after its release the book is still popular I am delighted by the response and by the number of people who correspond with me about it who send me further examples of thoughtless in main design plus occasional examples of superb design many readers have told me that it has changed their lives making them more sensitive to the problems of life and to the needs of people some changed their careers and became designers because of the book the response has been amazing why a revised edition in the 25 years that have passed since the first edition of the book technology has undergone massive change neither cellphones nor the Internet were in widespread usage when I wrote the book home networks were unheard of Moore's law proclaims that the power of computer processors doubles roughly every two years this means that today's computers are 5,000 times more powerful than the ones available when the book was first written although the fundamental design principles of the design of everyday things are still as true and as important as when the first edition was written the examples were badly out of date one is a slide projector students asked even if nothing else was to be changed the examples had to be updated the principles of effective design also had to be brought up to date human centered design HC D has emerged since the first edition partially inspired by that book this current edition has an entire chapter devoted to the HC d process of product development the first edition of the book focused upon making products understandable and usable the total experience of a product covers much more than its usability aesthetics pleasure and fun play critically important roles there was no discussion of pleasure enjoyment or emotion emotion is so important that I wrote an entire book emotional design about the role it plays in design these shoes are also now included in this edition my experiences in industry have taught me about the complexities of the real world how cost and schedules are critical the need to pay attention to competition and the importance of multidisciplinary teams I learned that the successful product has to appeal to customers and the criteria they use to determine what to purchase may have surprisingly little overlap with the aspects that are important during usage the best products do not always succeed brilliant new technologies might take decades to become accepted to understand products it is not enough to understand design or technology it is critical to understand business what has changed for listeners familiar with the earlier edition of this book here is a brief review of the changes what has changed not much everything when I started I assumed that the basic principles were still true so all I needed to do was update the examples but in the end I rewrote everything why because although all the principles still applied in the 25 years since the first edition much has been learned I also now know which parts were difficult and therefore need better explanations in the interim I also wrote many articles and six books on related topics some of which I thought important to include in the revision for example the original book says nothing of what has come to be called user experience a term that I was among the first to use when in the early 1990s the group I headed at Apple called itself the user experience architect's office this needed to be here finally my exposure to industry taught me much about the way products actually get deployed so I added considerable information about the impact of budgets schedules and competitive pressures when I wrote the original book I was an academic researcher today I have been an industry executive Apple HP in some startups a consultant to numerous companies and a board member of companies I had to include my learnings from these experiences finally one important component of the original Edition was its brevity the book could be read quickly as a basic general introduction I kept that feature unchanged I tried to delete as much as I added to keep the total size about the same I failed the book is meant to be an introduction advanced discussions of the topics as well as a large number of important but more advanced topics had been left out to maintain the compactness the previous edition lasted from 1988 to 2013 if the new edition is the last as long 2013 2 2013 8 I had to be careful to choose examples that would not be dated 25 years from now as a result I have tried not to give specific company examples after all who remembers the companies of 25 years ago who can predict what new companies will arise what existing companies will disappear and what new technologies will arise in the next 25 years the one thing I can predict with certainty is that the principles of human psychology will remain the same which means that the design principles here based on psychology on the nature of human cognition emotion action and interaction with the world will remain unchanged here is a brief summary of the changes chapter by chapter chapter 1 the psychopathology of everyday things signifiers are the most important addition to the chapter a concept first introduced in my book living with complexity the first edition had a focus upon affordances but although affordances make sense for interaction with physical objects they are confusing when dealing with virtual ones as a result affordances have created much confusion in the world of design affordances define what actions are possible signifiers specify how people discover those possibilities signifiers are signs perceptible signals of what can be done signifiers are a far more important to designers than our affordances hence the extended treatment I added a very brief section on HCD a term didn't yet exist when the first edition was published although looking back we see that the entire book was about HCD other than that the chapter is the same and although all the photographs and drawings are new the examples are pretty much the same chapter 2 the psychology of everyday actions this chapter has one major addition to the coverage in the first edition the addition of emotion the seven stage model of action has proven to be influential as has the three level model of processing introduced in my book emotional design in this chapter I showed the interplay between these to show that different emotions arise at the different stages and show which stages are primarily located at each of the three levels of processing visceral for the elementary levels of motor action performance and perception behavioral for the levels of action specification and initial interpretation of the outcome and reflective for the development of goals plans in the final stage of evaluation of the outcome chapter three knowledge in the head and in the world aside from improved and updated examples the most important addition to this chapter is a section on culture which is of special importance to my discussion of natural mappings what seems natural and one culture may not be in another the section examines the way different cultures view time the discussion might surprise you chapter four knowing what to do constraints discoverability and feedback few substantive changes better examples the elaboration of forcing functions into two kinds lock in and lock out and a section on destination control elevators illustrating how change can be extremely disconcerting even to professionals even if the change is for the better Chapter five human error no bad design the basics are unchanged but the chapter itself has been heavily revised I update the classification of errors to fit advances since the publication of the first edition in particular I now divide slips into two main categories action-based and memory lapses and mistakes into three categories rule-based knowledge-based and memory lapses these distinctions are now common but I introduce a slightly different way to treat memory lapses although the multiple classifications of slips provided in the first edition are still valid many have little or no implications for design so they had been eliminated from the revision I provide more design relevant examples I showed the relationship of the classification of errors slips and mistakes to the seven stage model of action something new in this revision the chapter concludes with a quick discussion of the difficulties posed by automation from my book the design of future things and what I consider the best new approach to deal with design so as to either eliminate or minimize human error resilience engineering Chapter six Design Thinking this chapter is completely new I discussed two views of human centered design the British design councils double diamond model and the traditional HCD iteration of observation ideation prototyping and testing the first diamond is the divergence followed by convergence of possibilities to determine the appropriate problem the second diamond is a divergence convergence to determine an appropriate solution I introduced activity centered design as a more appropriate variant of human centered design in many circumstances these sections cover the theory the chapter then takes a radical shift in position starting with a section entitled what I just told you it doesn't really work that way here is where I introduce Norman's law the day the product team is announced it is behind schedule and over its budget I discussed challenges of design within a company where schedules budgets and the competing requirements of the different divisions all provides severe constraints upon what can be accomplished listeners from industry have told me that they welcome these sections which capture the real pressures upon them the chapter concludes the discussion of the role of standards modified from a similar discussion in the earlier edition plus some more general design guidelines chapter 7 design in the world of business this chapter is also completely new continuing the theme started in chapter 6 of design in the real world here I discuss feature itis the change is being forced upon us to the invention of new technologies and the distinction between incremental and radical innovation everyone wants radical innovation but the truth is most radical innovations fail and even when they do succeed it can take multiple decades before they are accepted radical innovation therefore is relatively rare incremental innovation is common the techniques of human centered design are appropriate to incremental innovation they cannot lead to radical innovations the chapter concludes with discussions of the trends to come the future of books the moral obligations of design and the rise of small do-it-yourself makers that are starting to revolutionize the way ideas are conceived and introduced into the marketplace the rise of the small I call it summary with the passage of time the psychology of people stays the same but the tools and objects in the world change cultures change technologies change the principles of design still hold but the way they get applied needs to be modified to account for new activities new technologies new methods of communication and interaction the psychology of everyday things was appropriate for the 20th century the design of everyday things is for the 21st Don Norman Silicon Valley California WWJD org