“The Design of Everyday Things”, by Donald A. Norman, is an entertaining and easy-to-read overview of product design that comes highly recommended from me. You will receive 217 pages full of humorous explorations into the world of product design. Donald A. Norman is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, “an executive consulting firm that helps companies produce human-centered products and services”.

It took me a while to realize while I was reading this book that he was co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group. And if that rings a bell, it means that you’ve heard of Jakob Nielsen, a “usability guru” in which many people, usually designers, highly disagree with. Personally, I can see arguments on both sides but I have never read a substantial document from Nielsen to form an opinion yet. (I say yet because I plan on reading and reviewing a book from Nielsen in the near future.) I was shocked when I made the connection between the two because a lot of designers form bad opinions about Nielsen, but I highly enjoyed Norman’s sense of self-deprecation, humor and insight. Norman is A-okay in my book and as a full-time designer, I can say that he really does understand not only the point of view of everyone in the industry but especially, he feels for designers.

In his book, “The Design of Everyday Things”, you can expect information that relates to all products, both old, like doors, and new, like computer software. Quite frankly, I’m surprised there are some bad reviews of this book on web sites out there but most of them stem from the opinion that this book is “out of date”. Originally published in 1988 with new editions printed often, I can see how many people would automatically think it’s out of date. It isn’t. It’s easy to bridge his ideals on product design to current projects you may work on and that makes the book useful. Norman goes into products that are electronic too. Honestly, if you can’t bridge the gap from the examples to your own projects, you probably should never consider being in the product design industry. You may even have difficulty succeeding at being a good designer in general, in any discipline. I can see how it’s possible with other research books, but this one is extremely practical and will prove of interest to any newcomer or professional alike.

I love how Norman sympathizes with all the choices involved in product design. He knows that projects take several types of professionals and constraints. He states the ideals, he states the constraints and then he states the compromises that best fit. Norman also speaks of trends within the industry. The following is an example of this which I just adore, because I am witness to this very often:

“People, generally engineers or managers, tend to feel that they are humans, therefore they can design something for other humans just as well as the trained interface expert. It’s really interesting to watch engineers and computer scientists go about designing a product. They argue and argue about how to do things, generally with a sincere desire to do the right thing for the user. But when it comes to assessing the tradeoffs between the user interface and internal resources in a product, they almost alays tend to simplify their own lives. They will have to do the work, they try to make the internal machine architecture as simple as possible. Internal design elegance sometimes maps to user interface elegance, but not always. Design teams really need vocal advocates for the people who will ultimately use the interface.”

Most of all though, I love the funny examples of how everyday people try to use everyday products and fail. It is not the fault of the user most of the time, it’s the fault of the design. So here are some examples I gathered!

Case Study #1: On my first trip to London I stayed at a lovely hotel near the Queensway underground station. Embarrassingly enough, on my first try to flush the toilet I had trouble. There wasn’t a lever, no chain to pull, but a button. After pushing the button the water swiveled around a little but did not flush. I tried it again and again, same result, no actual flush. I thought perhaps I was mad or that it was broken, “maybe the plumbing is old?”. So I went on the hunt for an American female, as I am, to help me out. She laughed and said she had the same problem but figured it out. You had to push hard, I mean very hard, on the button to make it work. So hard that I had to lean on something else more sturdy to push it. Was that obvious? No. Was it a hassle? Not really, once you figured it out. It the mechanics of the device needed more force to activate the flush, perhaps the button was not the ideal solution. The designers could have done something else altogether that required less effort.

Case Study #2: On the topic of cultural differences, an English friend gave me the following scenario. “During the first few of the numerous times I have been to the USA, I had a similar problem with the faucet in the bath - specifically, how to make it activate the shower. No obvious buttons, knobs or other protrusions to indicate how to achieve this. The first part of the hurdle is, of course, that we don’t have the word ‘faucet’ in the UK (we just refer to them as ‘the taps’), so asking around wasn’t quite so simple either. Turns out you have to pull or push the actual tap that’s mounted to the wall. In the UK I’m mostly used to having to pull a small but distinct button or stop that’s actually attached to the faucet, which does the same task.” In this example, the shower the friend was using had a mapping problem. It tried to do too many things at once. Not only does the faucet (tap) act as the place in which water comes from but also acts as a mechanism to activate the shower. Usually, having the same thing do two things at once is not a good idea, especially when one thing it does is just give you something (water pours out) while the other thing you have to give it something (a push or pull to activate). I have used several like these as well and it is confusing. It’s also weird to have to explain to all your guests who come over how to use the shower when the next day you’re woken up by the same guest who says “I forgot how to use the shower, can you show me again?” It’s not surprising either, a lot of people have problem with the way faucets are mapped out and it’s a common example that Norman goes into detail about with examples.

Case Study #3: Another friend gives this scenario: “Here’s a small one I was dealing with a short time ago. I went up to a computer lab at my college to fix some of the computers in there, and I had a set of keys to use on the door. I know I’d been in this room before, and used the keys before, but when I got there, I just could not manage to get it open. I sifted through all fifteen or so keys on the ring, and found the key that I KNEW went to the door. It slid in perfectly, and turned seemlessly…but I heard no sort of click or any sound of mechanical movement inside. So, I tried to twist the knob…nothing. I took the key out, and tryed it again…solid as a rock. So, I went back through and tried all of the keys all the keys, landing back on the same one that I knew was correct. I went through the motions again, but to no avail. I then went to ask a coworker for help, as I had gotten the keys from him. He came over, put the key in and turned it…then pushed on the door, WITHOUT moving the knob or hearing any click…and it opened.” Two things went wrong with the design of the door and lock here. 1. Being able to see or hear something when you do something right allows you to know that you were making the correct decisions. Without those responses from the product, in this case the lock, you think you are making the wrong decisions. The lock should have made a sound when it became unlocked, like all other locks do, but it didn’t. The designers should have decided to stay within convention on this one and allow the user to hear the mechanism work. 2. If there is a knob on a door the obvious thought is “the knob controls the opening of the door”. In this case, the friend successfully unlocked the door without his knowledge and when he tried to use the knob, it did not open. The knob was not functional. You had to push the door to open it. Is that obvious? No. If we give a user an option of the knob, what reason do they have to try to push the door instead of using the knob?

Buy it on Amazon - they rated it 4 out of 5 stars and have search inside available.