About as intentionally rage-inducing as a Kafka novel, and half as good too, exactly the kind of book I’d expect from someone who was a Vice President in Apple. The Design of Everyday Things is far reaching, as hinted by its initial to-and-fro-ing between psychology (POET) and DOET.
Strands I particularly liked included the skewed mental model of a fridge-freezer, the techno-optimism and deep yearning for a computer-calendar-pocket-device, the Thiel-ian note on how monopolies don’t have to entice consumers with an initial instragram-like draw, and the University of Sheffield shout-out.
DOET made me wonder whether programming is the essence of bad design in that nothing is visible, and you can only render things visible by understanding the domain.
This book struck me as the soul brother of How Buildings Learn in its hate of credentialled designers/architects, both even refer to exact same anecdote of Frank Lloyd Wright: ‘The roof is leaking/Tell him to move his chair’. We are yet to figure out how to award credentials for empowering users.
I loved the references to the wealth that mass-consumerism brings, and how early Norman was in speaking out against artisanal products. Too far of course: ‘There won’t be any film, just videotape’.