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The Design of Everyday Things

16 November 2009 User Experience great reading

Yesterday I finished reading “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman (from Nielsen Norman Group) and straight from the beginning I have to say it was really educative, exceptional and informative book.

“The appearance of the device must provide the critical clues required for its proper operation.”
Don Norman

Although Don Norman is giving lots of excellent examples of good and bad design throughout the book – poorly designed doors, taps, telephones, cars, wrist watches etc – the book is rather about how people thing and are using various devices, rather about the basics of interaction between the user and the device. The book helped me to realize what makes good design good and bad design bad, how is important to design for the common user and how good design can make our lives better. That the design is not just aesthetics and that products shouldn’t be designed in isolation.

  • we should blame designers for creation of difficult-to-use devices
  • what affordance is and why it is so important
  • crucial role of feedback and visibility in design – the user should know what to do and what’s going on
  • conceptual models – what the device can do, conceptual model, system model and interface model
  • how knowledge is important and how is important to divide knowledge between the world and our head
  • importance of constraints and forcing functions
  • understand errors, how to prevent them, how to minimise the implications and how to help the user to fix them
  • conflict between the device (which the designers are familiar with) and the task (which the user is familiar with)

The Design of Everyday Things book cover

DOET was simply great source of knowledge and inspiration, especially now, when I just recently started to learning more about interaction and user experience design and when I’m preparing my Graphic Design in context of User Experience presentation.

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Ogilvy on Advertising

15 August 2009 great reading

Why is Ogilvy on Advertising one of the best books I read so far?

When I was setting off for my summer holiday, I was deciding, which book to pick up from the shelves of my favourite Borders bookshop in the Leeds city centre. I was aiming for The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, but when I saw David Ogilvy’s book on a shelve, I wasn’t able to resist.

The book became my faithful companion, when relaxing on the sunlit beach or in the shade on the peaceful terrace of the hotel. And I have to admit that the “Ogilvy on Advertising” was one of the best books concerning the creative / advertising industry I ever read.

After reading this book, I believe everybody involved in creative / advertising / design industry should read this title. Why did I find the book such a great source of knowledge and inspiration?

  • find out, why David Ogilvy resigned on the Rolls Royce account
  • how should look like the promise you are giving to your customers (and what promise will make them buy)
  • you may realize why choosing brand = choosing image and what it actually is
  • how (not) to offend your target audience’s intelligence
  • why headlines are so important and what rules apply to creating of headlines
  • how to use imagery and body copy
  • and much much more

But this is not all David Ogilvy is trying to get across – you’ll learn about the importance of careful research, some interesting statistics about creativity, how is it important to keep learning and gaining knowledge and finally – a bit of Mr. Ogilvy’s fantastic experiences and narratives.

You’ll get much more out of the book than you paid for. This is simple no-brainer – just go to your bookstore or visit Amazon and get it. You just can’t get anything better for your money out there.

Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

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Don’t Make Me Think

10 August 2009 great reading

What a fantastic book on web usability! I found many designers consider it being a usability bible – and they probably know why.

I read this book back in 2006 and since that time it has its special place in my bookcase. It helped me to understand why should we bother with usability and user experience and generally influenced my view of design not as just visual discipline of aesthetics, but rather a problem-solving discipline.

What I learned from “Don’t Make Me Think”?

  • why is navigation so important, how to use tabs and breadcrumb navigation
  • how to start with usability tests even in small web team
  • what to take on account when designing homepage
  • a bit about the psychology of how users behave on web – how users doesn’t want to stop to make decisions and think

The book is short but very informative, with lots of bullet points, colour illustrations and cartoons. I think anybody involved in user interface / interaction or experience design should read it.

Buy Don’t Make Me Think on Amazon

Don't Make Me Think book cover

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