The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman

Preface to the 2002 Edition

Donald A. Norman’s goal with his book, The Design of Everyday Things (DOET), is to encourage designers to employ good designs when it comes to everyday items so that these items can be used easily, efficiently, and enjoyably by the consumer. He explains that too many objects, such as, doors, telephones, and automobiles are designed poorly, and in effect bring frustration to the user.

Through his work as a cognitive scientist, Norman became especially interested in human error. At first, he focused his work on finding ways to help people avoid making mistakes. His interests shifted though after he participated on a team that was supposed to investigate the mistakes of control-room operators at a nuclear power plant accident. Instead, he and the team found that the errors were caused by the design of the room and not the operators (viii).

Similarly, he began to notice that the designs of everyday items were designed poorly. For instance, during his time at the Applied Psychology unit in Cambridge, England, he was puzzled by the doors; some slid open, while others required a push or pull. In any case, there were no visual clues that indicated which method to use. His annoyance with the complexity of these types of items inspired him to write this book, which was originally titled, The Psychology of Everyday Things (POET). He later switched the title to DOET after learning that the book was being shelved in the psychology section of the bookstore opposed to the design section because of the word “psychology” (viii-x).

The three main topics that DOET covers are:

1. It’s not your fault: I feel so much better about myself after reading this selection because there are a few common items that I occasionally have trouble with, such as, the DVD player, oven stove, and telephone at work. It’s good to hear that many people have similar issues with appliances that should be simple to use. However, they aren’t because of poor design (x).


2. Design principles: Principles (a short list follows) are discussed so that designers can create easy-to-use products. (a.) Conceptual models – Items should explain how they work through their appearance. There should be “an obvious and natural relationship between the location and operation of the controls, so you always know what does what (xi-xii),” and Norman refers to this as “natural mapping.” (b.) Feedback – It’s important for a person to receive feedback so that they know the effect of their action. For example, at work I have to submit various requests online and after I submit them, I receive an e-mail, which tells me that my request was successfully submitted. Without that, I wouldn’t know whether my request was received or not. (c.) Constraints – Designers should create a product so that it can only be used one way. For instance, batteries should only be able to be inserted into a device one way, or if there are multiple ways, each way should work. (d.) Affordances – The proper actions of an item should be obvious to a person, while the improper actions shouldn’t (xi-xii).


3. The power of observation: Learn to watch people and the way that they use objects. This, according to Norman, is the most important advice to take away from the book (xii).

Successful Designs take all of these items into account, in addition to cost and aesthetics. And although this book debuted in 1988, these design principles are still critical when it comes to newer technologies, like cell phones and computers. Norman writes that “high technology changes rapidly, but everyday life changes slowly (xiv).” Therefore the design of these items needs to be intuitive to a user so that they can understand how to use them properly and easily.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

The first chapter continues to explain that the difference between easy and hard-to-use items is their design. “Well-designed objects are easy to interpret and contain visible clues to their operation (2),” whereas poorly-designed objects are difficult to use and contain false, or no visible clues.

Two pieces of advice that Norman provides for creating good designs are:

1. “Provide a good conceptual model,” and
2. “make things visible (13).”

He acknowledges that some tasks, such as flying an airplane, would be difficult to the average person, even if the airplane was designed well. However, turning on light switches and faucets, and opening doors should be easy. He provides an example about one of his friends who was temporarily trapped in a post office in Europe. While the typical door has a hinge on one side, and to open it, one must pull or push on the opposite side, the doors to the post office didn’t have any visible hinges or pillars. The friend was trapped between two sets of doors because it turned out that he was unknowingly pushing on the hinged side of the door, and he didn’t escape until another group passed through. This was a frustrating situation that happened because the necessary parts of the object were invisible to the user, and the function of the object was unclear. The designer could have created visibility by including a flat plate on the doors so that people would naturally know to push on that spot to open them. This concept would refer to natural design (3-4).

I have another example of a design that has poor visibility. A few weeks ago, I bought a Honda Civic, and when I went to fill it up with gas for the first time, I spent nearly 10 minutes figuring out how to open the gas casket. In my previous car and the other cars that I’m familiar with, there’s a visible ridge on the casket that naturally tells you to lift up. Since this ridge doesn’t exist on my new car, I tried to push the casket and then I tried to pry it open. Neither of these actions worked, and embarrassed, I got into my car and started to read the manual. It turns out that there is a button on the floor by the door that you need to push in to open the gas casket. This button isn’t visible or obvious to a person who has never had a Honda.

Another principle that Norman discusses in detail is mapping, which means “the relationship between two things (23),” and I think that I can illustrate this term by explaining an everyday item that I occasionally have problems with - the stove. There is nothing special about my stove – it has two back burners, two front burners, and four knobs that control the burners, which run left to right. The problem is that I’ll sometimes intend to turn on the back burner, and I realize minutes later that I actually turned on the front burner. Why are the knobs in a horizontal line? I would understand which knob is associated with which burner better if two knobs were on the left in a vertical line and two knobs were on the right in a vertical line. This mapping would be more natural for me.

Other devices, like telephones, can be difficult to use because they have the ability to perform so many functions (assuming that the user can correctly execute them) and coincidentally have too many controls. Why add 50 functions to a telephone when the average user only knows how to perform a handful of them? A few days ago at work, I spent nearly 20 minutes trying to change my voicemail. (I checked the manual, and there were no instructions). I had to dial my number, login with my password, and skip through all of my voicemails before I got to a recording that went something like this, “You have finished playing all of your voicemails. For more options press 7*.” Then, I had the option of pressing one, for more voicemail commands or two, for mailbox commands. After several menus and selecting random numbers, I did finally get to change my voicemail, but why couldn’t I get to my greeting right away? Why did I have to listen to all of my saved voicemails first? Perhaps if I pressed 7* in the beginning I would have been able to get to the proper menu faster, but why did the designer choose an arbitrary number like 7*?

Works Cited

Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, 1988.