The Design of Future Things

by Donald A. Norman

Donald A. Norman, a popular design consultant to car manufacturers, computer companies, and other industrial and design outfits, has seen the future and is worried. In this long-awaited follow-up to The Design of Everyday Things, he points out what’s going wrong with the wave of products just coming on the market and some that are on drawing boards everywhere-from “smart” cars and homes that seek to anticipate a user’s every need, to the latest automatic navigational systems. Norman builds on this critique to offer a consumer-oriented theory of natural human-machine interaction that can be put into practice by the engineers and industrial designers of tomorrow’s thinking machines. This is a consumer-oriented look at the perils and promise of the smart objects of the future, and a cautionary tale for designers of these objects-many of which are already in use or development.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Technology, Business, Psychology, Science, Usability

231 pages, Hardcover

Published October 30, 2007

About the author

Donald Arthur Norman is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego. He is best known for his books on design, especially The Design of Everyday Things. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the fields of design, usability engineering, and cognitive science, and has shaped the development of the field of cognitive systems engineering. He is a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, along with Jakob Nielsen. He is also an IDEO fellow and a member of the Board of Trustees of IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. He also holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. Norman is an active Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he spends two months a year teaching.
Much of Norman's work involves the advocacy of user-centered design. His books all have the underlying purpose of furthering the field of design, from doors to computers. Norman has taken a controversial stance in saying that the design research community has had little impact in the innovation of products, and that while academics can help in refining existing products, it is technologists that accomplish the breakthroughs. To this end, Norman named his website with the initialism JND (just-noticeable difference) to signify his endeavors to make a difference.

See also Don Norman

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notes to self:
Affordances as means of communication.
Risk homeostasis. Reverse risk compensation. (compensatory mechanisms)
Swarms. Predictive/interactive behaviour.
Cross-feedback.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.0) Not as educational as The Design of Everyday Things

Feels fluffier, less concrete, more repetitive (e.g. keeps coming back to autonomous driving (well, makes sense, he's funded/paid by Ford and Toyota at time of writing) and doesn't really add more as he does so). Feels like a rehashing of Everyday Things with just the added complication that the technology/devices/products now are "intelligent" and help automate things that humans would otherwise have to do (or couldn't possibly do) on their own. This does present design challenges, but we stay way too high-level for this to carry much weight. I do give him credit for keeping it relatively short. Some journalists I've read would've dragged this on 50% longer.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Donald A. Norman's earlier The Psychology of Everyday Things (renamed with its first paperback release, apparently as a misguided sop to the business and marketing types who were incapable of appreciating the elegance and poetry of the original title, to the sadly prosaic The Design of Everyday Things) was a landmark work, filled with meticulous, pithy and interesting observations about how the objects around us succeed, and fail, when measured against our expectations and assumptions.

It's a lot harder to make such meticulous observations about the future, of course, and Norman's 2007 book The Design of Future Things suffers greatly in comparison, largely from that inability to be as specific. The Design of Future Things is essentially a work of science fiction, but it's an overly cautious one, taking current trends in automation and computing expertise and drawing some plausible conclusions about what could happen "if this goes on." Norman's conclusions in this case seem to be about 1/3 Viewing With Alarm, 1/3 simple skepticism and 1/3 cautious optimism—a plausible extrapolation, to be sure, if not exactly visionary. Norman refuses to take the wilder leaps of conjecture that would come from a true sf author's word processor, accepting instead that current limits on computers' processing power, real-world sensing apparatus and interconnectivity will be overcome only slowly. He explicitly acknowledges but does not seem to take to heart the implications of Moore's Law. This caution is a worthy and, frankly, unusual trait for a futurist, but it also makes for a rather less exciting book.

And then there are other parts of the book that seem merely amateurish and rushed; the hand-drawn sketches appear to have been dashed off at lunchtime and inserted at whim, with awkward captions only loosely tied to the text, and then Norman's foray late in the book into actual scientific fiction comes across as stiff and didactic, like something from a 19th-Century fabulist rather than a 21st-Century author.

I picked this book up the second time, honestly, because I did not remember having read it before; make of that what you will. Norman's points here are mostly valid ones, and this book is, all in all, a worthwhile read... but I find myself not making this recommendation with much enthusiasm.

[Danien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Norman takes his ideas from The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design and applies them to "intelligent" machines or artificial intelligence in this book. However, given that this book was published in 2007, it does not have the groundbreaking quality of the earlier books. He also does not cover broader systems such as computer software or the web, which forms a large part of our human-machine interactions today. Ironically, many of the ideas he presents are probably more innovative when applied to software systems today.

One interesting idea here is the concept that intelligent machines/software need not, and should not, always attempt to predict or read human minds, an impossible task, at least for now. This has led to frequent frustration and occasionally, danger.

Instead, they should complement or supplement human behaviors and intelligence, allowing humans take the lead, and providing assistance while taking into account human emotions. Some machines might do better to simply provide humans with greater awareness through their better sensors or provide physical aid, allowing each party to do what they do best.

Another idea is that the communication to achieve this should be through non-intrusive, peripheral, means where machines should not demand attention unless absolutely critical. Machines designed for human use must take into account human emotions and irrationality, so the tone of this communication is also important.

When applied to machines today, these ideas may not seem that innovative, but I think there is great opportunity to apply them to content creation software tools, such as game development tools. Tools that always provide you with qualitative information of different factors (how many enemies in the level, how difficult so far, how complex, etc), tools that automate the creation of content like placing props, etc.

While interesting, this book is not quite as seminal as his previous work. One interesting aspect to cover in the future could be human social interaction and dynamics through, or with, machines.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you haven't read Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, I would urge you to put it on your reading list. It was a catalog of human factors design failures, and a set of prescriptions to improve design. An excellent read.

In The Design of Future Things Norman tries to recreate his earlier success, with mixed results. He is as insigntful as ever, but the material is a tad thin. To fill space he resorted to repetition and added a wholly extraneous and redundant 'afterword'.

He proposes six rules for designers of automated or 'smart' machines:

1. Provide rich, complex, and natural signals.

2. Be predictable.

3. Provide good conceptual models.

4. Make the output understandable.

5. Provide continual awareness without annoyance.

6. Exploit natural mappings.

He provides at least one negative and one positive example for each of these rules.

A major theme of the book is that machines work well if they can be fully automated and operate autonomously, or when they are completely human controlled. But the middle ground is troublesome. If automation works most of the time and then suddenly fails, trouble results. Since many tasks cannot be fully automated, it is a challenge to engineers and designers to find a way to design machines that can interact safely and usefully with humans.

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, readable musings on the design of technology to help people and to replace people. Norman exposes some basic limitations of technology in automating human thoughts and actions, including inferring reason. He often looks at these issues through the lens of an automotive designer working on self-driving cars, but discussions on kitchen appliances also are in abundance here. This was written more than a decade back now and the thoughts expressed are more common now than when written. Nevertheless, the conversational, pop-science tone and understandable explanations makes this of interest.

[Bryan Kibbe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of the principles elaborated in this book can already be found in Norman's previous work (The Design of Everyday Things), however, this book does provide a wealth of examples of cutting edge technologies and some of the design considerations involved. The book is worth reading for the examples alone. I found Norman's treatments of the relationship between humans and technologies to be insightful, but lacking in more sustained development. In particular, I kept wondering what is Norman's underlying philosophy of technology, how does he envision technological systems, their construction, goals, and social impact. Most especially, is good design recognized by more than safety and ease of use? Nonetheless, Norman does provide some interesting thoughts about trust and the role of technological augmentation versus technological autonomy, which I found to be thought provoking and useful. I suggest reading the Design of Everyday Things first, and then moving onto this book for a useful update of technological examples and considerations about technological automation.

[Sashko Valyus · Rating 3 out of 5]

So now 10 years passed we have cars that drive sleeping people to work, Amazon Echo and Roombas. The bad and good things that were predicted in this book actually happened. When autonomous self-driving fails we have catastrophic crashes, we not sure about all possibilities of Alexa, but the robot vacuum cleaner does its job well every day.
D. Norman tried to create heuristics method for IoT in this book. It's repetitive sometimes, has a lot of examples and finished in some kind of weird conversation.
Recommended for everybody who creates a better world for humanity not only through the screen

[Caitlin McA · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my students recommended this book to me, and I can see why. He is such a technical learner -- obsessed with knowing how and why things work -- and this book totally fits his profile. I'm learning more about my student from this book than anything else -- I think other people's literature choices can be so telling.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

a sad disappointment.
Norman's Design of Everyday things is a landmark book and should be read by everyone. however this book is not that book.

it's a cursory look at current (2006) consumer-facing technologies and his predictions for how this will be accepted by consumers. it is not thorough, it is not analytical, he talks very briefly about design principles in any of these.

Read everyday things again, skip this one.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review

Social Machines

A new book argues that machines work best when they help us perform, not perform in our stead.

The Design of Future Things by Donald A. Norman. Basic Books. 2007. 231 pages. $27.50.

“Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, simple or direct than does Nature. In her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous,” Renaissance painter Leonardo da Vinci once remarked. Former Apple vice president Donald Norman’s Design of Future Things is very much rooted in this Leonardesque sentiment. The short, conversational book serves as both a meditation on the nature of human–machine interaction and a warning: invention that ignores the human, the artful, and the natural will fail both conspicuously and disastrously. “We are confronting a new breed of machine with intelligence and autonomy, machines that can indeed take over for us in many situations,” Norman writes. “In many cases, they will make our lives more effective, more fun, and safer. In others, however, they will frustrate us, get in our way, and even increase danger. For the first time, we have machines that are attempting to interact with us socially.”

We spend ever more time conversing with machinery. In the obvious sense, this means more interfacing (the technologist’s preferred term) with a wider variety of devices: selecting from an assortment of rinse cycles on our washer; setting lighting systems, motion detectors, and security devices as we leave the house; starting up the car; programming the MP3 player, GPS computer, and even the cruise control before actually hitting the gas.

As our interfacing opportunities increase, so does the potential for human–object miscommunication.

Machines may work like clockwork, but they handle surprises like robots— which is to say, poorly. We rely on them when we shouldn’t and find ourselves (ironically) lost after following the directions of a computer that can neither see nor drive, mopping up after a stubborn washer that refuses to stop when we open the lid midcycle, apologizing to the police on our doorstep for our well-intentioned but overly vigilant security systems.

What’s missing from the human– machine relationship, says Norman, is a sense of respectful partnership. His book is full of examples of what a better tête-à-tête might look like. A Microsoft Cambridge “smart” home actually seeks to make its occupants smarter, allowing family members to leave messages on digital surfaces viewable anywhere throughout—or outside—the house. It’s a vision of home as digital administrative assistant rather than as butler. A Georgia Tech smart home can watch you cook and—if you have to break away to answer the phone—remind you where you left off. Bad memory? The house also monitors your prescriptions and can let your family do the same. After all, who knows you best?

“Both groups of researchers could have tried to make the devices intelligent,” Norman points out. “Instead, both groups devised systems t h a t would f it smoothly into people’s life styles. Both systems rely upon powerful, advanced technology, but the guiding philosophy for each group is augmentation, not automation.”

Automobiles are another example of machines that could become less automatic and more “social.” Radio frequency identification and similar technologies already allow cars to communicate with tollbooths, so why not with other cars? It will be a long time before such car-to-car collaboration eliminates the need for traffic lights and speed limits. In the meantime, cars that could better negotiate their position, speed, and distance with one another would most certainly prevent wrecks.

What’s most important, says Norman, is that the inventors of the future transcend the binary distinction between the practice of art and the science of engineering and move toward a comprehensive “science of design.” The notion harkens back to sixteenth-century Florence, a time and place where broad knowledge and boundless curiosity were considered as valuable as narrow expertise or a declared major. If a more generalist approach yields objects that better reflect the coherence of nature— rather than the whim of marketers—then the objects of tomorrow will be unquestionably smarter. ❑

About the Reviewer

Patrick Tucker is the senior editor of THE FUTURIST and director of communications for the World Future Society. E‑mail ptucker@wfs.org .


This review originally appeared in THE FUTURIST, May-June 2008

[Sasha Chewohin · Rating 3 out of 5]

– Машина отличная, – ответил он, – но навигационной системой я вообще не пользуюсь. Я хочу сам выбирать маршрут, а она все решает за меня.

– Слушай, – говорит дом, пока ты утром собираешься на работу, – куда ты спешишь? Мусор я выбросил, мог бы, кстати, и спасибо сказать. И хорошо бы нам поговорить насчет этого симпатичного регулятора – помнишь, я показывал тебе его на фото? С ним я буду работать куда эффективнее, и, между прочим, у дома Джона он уже есть.

«Это абсолютно безопасно, – уверяли меня представители принимающей стороны, – только не надо „помогать“ велосипедистам. Не пытайтесь от них увернуться. Не останавливайтесь, не шарахайтесь в сторону. Ведите себя предсказуемо». Иными словами, не надо замедлять ход и менять направление. Велосипедисты тщательно просчитывают траекторию движения, чтобы не столкнуться друг с другом и с пешеходами, и это работает, если не происходит ничего неожиданного. Но когда пешеход пытается уклониться от едущего навстречу велосипеда, дело кончается плохо.

Таким образом, появление ремней безопасности, мотоциклетных шлемов, защитных щитков у футболистов, более высоких и удобных лыжных ботинок, систем по предотвращению заносов и контроля устойчивости в автомобилях приводит к тому, что люди начинают вести себя более рискованно.

Обмениваться информацией можно не только внутри роя, но и с другими роями. Так, рой, движущийся в одном направлении, может делиться информацией с роем, едущим в противоположную сторону, сообщая ему о том, что ждет его впереди. Кроме того, при интенсивном движении ведущая машина сможет передавать информацию остальным, информируя их об авариях, пробках и других дорожных проблемах.

Создатели Newton утверждали, что он способен распознавать рукописный текст и преобразовывать его в печатный. Идея отличная, но тогда, в 1993 году, эффективных систем распознавания рукописных текстов не было. Задача эта технически очень сложная, и по сей день окончательно она не решена. Систему для Newton разработала группа российских ученых и программистов, работавших в небольшой фирме Paragraph International. Это был весьма передовой программный продукт, но при его разработке не было соблюдено сформулированное мною правило человекомашинного взаимодействия: работа таких систем должна быть понятна пользователю.

Но человеческий мозг меняется даже без генной инженерии, «волшебной» биомедицины и хирургии – просто в результате получаемого опыта. Известно, к примеру, что мозг лондонских таксистов, известных отличным знанием города, отличается от мозга обычных людей увеличенным гиппокампом, который развивается за счет многолетней тренировки памяти. Впрочем, лондонскими таксистами дело не ограничивается. У многих специалистов наблюдается увеличение областей головного мозга, которые отвечают за сферу их деятельности. Опыт действительно меняет наш мозг. Факты говорят о том, что продолжительный контакт с технологиями, например многочасовые упражнения на музыкальном инструменте или набор кнопок на клавиатуре мобильного телефона и иных портативных устройствах, способен воздействовать на мозг.

Те из нас, кто живет в городах, освоили и другие трюки. Мы оборудуем светофоры фальшивыми кнопками, чтобы пешеходы думали, будто переключают их. В лифтах мы устанавливаем кнопки быстрого закрывания дверей, а в офисах – ложные термостаты. Естественно, провода мы не подводим, так что все эти кнопки и термостаты не работают, но людям так приятнее. Парадоксально, но факт.

[Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t find this nearly as informative or inspiring as the original.

[Wens Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Norman's webpage --- Don Norman, a champion of human-centred design.

Machines are getting smarted. We read about visions of smart homes that will automate all the mundane actions of life, such as regulating light and temperature, even ordering groceries. Norman sounds a caution in his book -- even human-human interactions go awry because our communication is not perfect, how much more so when machines try to 'read minds' using what they can measure about human behaviour and environment.

While there are many occassions when replacing humans with automation are beneficial and work well (e.g. search-and-rescue missions, high precision assembly in the factory), Norman suggests an alternative where machines augment, not replace, human intelligence, especially in places where the focus is on human interaction, such as the home.

He invites the reader to imagine a stereotypical intelligent calendar prototype - coordinating everyone's calendars and giving reminders. Would it one day start recommending tv shows and telling you how to lead your life? That would seem very efficient, but also 'most unhuman'.

Norman cites an alternative approach by a group of researchers at Cambridge (England). The group decided that it was people that made the home smart, not technology. Hence, they decided to support each family's solution to their own needs and not automate any one solution. One device they came up with to help people with calendaring is a smart magnet. Each is tagged to a day of the week, and would light up on that day. Thus, if you put the 'wednesday' magnet over the note relevant to that day, and when Wednesday comes, the magnet would start glowing. A useful reminder that is not annoying, because you can choose to ignore it.

With intelligent autonomy, systems would try to infer the intentions of people. With intelligent augmentation, devices would still let people decide when and where they are to be used. Augmentative tools are comforting because they leave decision-making to people, allowing different people to make different choices.

Norman also discusses more general design principles for smart machines. Those who have read "the design of everyday things" would feel a sense of familiarity when reading his observations of the disconnect between creators of technology think users want and users actually want, and his call for modern human-machine interactions to mimic natural interactions.

These ideas for good design are summarised at the back of his book:
1. provide rich, complex, and natural signals
2. be predictable
3. provide good conceptual models
4. make the output understandable
5. provide continual awareness without annoyance
6. exploit natural mappings

[Bojan Tunguz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always been a big fan of good design, but have never really had an opportunity to read much about it from those who make design their living. Recently, thanks to some advanced prototyping and manufacturing tools that have become widely accessible, I’ve been dabbling into design and have made a few of my own gadgets. At the same time I came across this book in the local public library, and thought it would be a good reading material to go with my fledgling design hobby. However, the book turned into a bit of a disappointment.

This book is neither an introduction to the design concepts and techniques, nor a wide-ranging look at the future of design. It comes closer to the latter paradigm, but the narrowness of its subjects and the shallowness of approach don’t lend themselves easily to the deeply thoughtful look at the design of the future things. The book takes a closer look at the issues that pertain to the design of a few interesting “futuristic” technologies (self-driving cars in particular feature prominently), and presents the case to the reader that what we would want out of these technologies may in fact not be either the safest or the best designed solution when it comes to their implementations. The book offers a few insightful observations, and a short checklist of good design principles. Many of these are pretty good overall, but the brunt of their points could have been summarized into an essay that is perhaps a third of the size of this, already very thin, book.

If you are looking for some casual musings by an authority on the subject of design, then this book might be for you. Otherwise you may want to read something that is a bit more technical and systematic. From what I’ve heard about it, The Design of Everyday Things might be a much better read on this subject. I’ll try to check it out at some point in the future.

[Joaquin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro trata de cómo mejorar la relación de las personas con las máquinas teniendo en cuenta que cada vez son más "inteligentes", con más iniciativa y asumiendo más responsabilidades, y por lo tanto tenemos que preocuparnos de cómo interactuamos con ellas.

Es un libro evidentemente técnico, orientado a los diseñadores de productos, pero se aproxima mucho a lo que podría ser un libro de ciencia ficción puesto que aventura cómo podría ser la relación entre las máquinas, cada vez más inteligentes y con cierta personalidad, y las personas.

Empecé a leer el libro porque me gusta mucho el enfoque que tiene Donald A. Norman respecto al diseño de productos siempre desde un punto de vista psicológico por lo que sus recomendaciones sirven para diseñar cualquier tipo de producto.

Si tengo que ponerle alguna pega sería que el libro se centra mucho en el diseño de automóviles, creo que el autor ha estado trabajando para Ford, aunque todos los conceptos se puedan aplicar a otros productos.

"I’m driving on the same winding, mountain road, and I notice that my car is tense: it’s scared. The seats straighten, the seat belts tighten, and the dashboard starts beeping at me."

[Alice Wardle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a little bit bad about giving 'The Design of Future Things' by Donald Norman only three stars. The previous book I read of his, 'The Design of Everyday Things', was very good and informative, yet this book felt too abstract and theoretical and lacked real life examples.(perhaps this is an unfair negative judgement, because it is a book concerning the future).

It did propose some useful rules for HOW we should think about design in the future; however, his rules were rules/demands and not guidelines. There was also limited examples as to what exact changes could be made. The rules almost seem too demanding and do not take into consideration the art of design whatsoever. I think that design needs to take into psychology, structure (form), and the artistic form of design, and not just a single one of these.

Some great points and facts stated include that machines and humans need to engage in dialogue and not two monologues, when things are safer the accident rate does not decrease because people are more likely to take risks, machines should be predictable, a machine's signal (such as a microwave beeping) should not be annoying (excluding a fire alarm, because its function is literally to alert by any means), and machines should be as easy to understand as possible.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an attempt to describe the current relationship between people and machines, and to find a path to optimal design strategies for the relationship going forward. It does some of that, but a lot of what it does it repeat itself. He told the same stories three or four times, and frequently described an idea in detail, discussed it, and described it again. Maybe I'm impatient, but I think this would've been a much better speech or article than book.

On the plus side, some of the concepts were interesting, and it did provide a framework for working the increasing intelligence of machines into daily life less painfully. The most useful point (to me) was that we like intelligence that doesn't control us, but only recommends. I.e., Amazon recommendations good, self-driving cars bad. Also, he pointed out how often we use very slight variations in sounds to diagnose problems, and I liked his recommendation that rather than binary annoying sounds (beeps, buzzes) we design things for more natural ranges, with sounds closely reflecting the current state of the system.

So, good idea, but a bit too long. Use your judgement. :)

[Dara B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read and rather educational for people with general interest in design and technology. No big revelations but a lot of things a user of technology doesn't necessarily think about when interacting with their car, computer, or washing machine. Norman refers to this process as 'communication' and claims that this is the uttermost challenge for designers of 'future things': to make the process of communication between humans and smart machines possible. Not in a sense that you will have conversations about Derrida and the meaning of life with your mobile (although after the Her movie, who knows), but in a sense that your mobile will be able to somehow 'read' your mood and current needs and act upon them. Or understand you when you give it tasks and ask questions.

It seems that the most of Norman's experience comes from working with cars, so there is a lot of fascinating facts about automated automobiles and how it might be possible to make all highways driverless (hint: we can take a few leads from nature). Also, the afterword is a precious thing and made me laugh - it might be worth reading in and of itself.

[Teja Srinivas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Key takeaways from this book

1. Machines should be designed at three levels of interaction : visceral , behavioral and reflective.

2. The machines should give naturalistic continuous feedback. An example of natural feedback is the sound of boiling water in a kettle.

3. Reverse risk compensation : For example the concept of shared space where there no traffic lights , stop signs , pedestrian crossings or special bike paths. Drivers automatically drives cautiously avoiding accidents . This concept of Shared space had several successful applications in across Europe. Ejby in Denmark , Ipswich in England , Ostende in Belgium , Makiinga and Dretchen in Netherlands.

4. Rules for human designers:
. Provide rich, complex and natural signals.
. Be predictable
. Provide good conceptual models
. Make the output understandable
. Provide continual awareness without annoyance
. Explore natural mappings

5. Rules For machines to communicate:
.Keep things simple
. Give people a conceptual mode
. Give reasons
. Make people think they are in control
. Continually reassure
. Never Label human behavior as "error"

[Vivek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly not as insightful as 'The design of everyday things', but this book offers some additional design principles which are ever more applicable to the design of technology experiences than ever before. Norman briefly tries to apply his past ideas about affordances, feedback, sounds and signals, and natural mapping. He further builds on with his vast examination of the 'future' automobile.
Some key takeaways are -
- Conversations with technology have increasingly become a monologue i.e. one way from the machine to the user. A technology that gives no opportunity for discussion, explanation, or debate is a poor technology.
- Machines have less power than humans, hence they have more authority.
- Understanding human intent is a major challenge for technology.
- Machines and humans lack common ground. It is important for both to understand what will be achieved by the other.
- Technology should be augmentative. It shouldn't distract, but still, be available when required. Think human-machine symbiosis.
- Fully manual is risky, but workable. Full automation is safer. Half automation is dangerous. Even worse when systems give up control when the going gets tough.

[Arwen Sadler · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting overview and contemplation of what it means to design things when "smart" technology is becoming increasingly complex and interwoven in our lives. A lot of discussion of designing around automation, especially when machines make decisions and do tasks for us. The last chapter was particularly interesting--very tongue-in-cheek, but I personally feel as if Norman should have more strongly and explicitly made his point. I do feel the book has a major oversight, which is that there's absolutely no discussion of the social and societal implications of these automations, beyond describing the discomfort and annoyance people feel when interacting with them. Norman claims that "social interaction" is important to consider as a designer, yet offers no discussion as to how large-scale automation and widespread implementation of AI and machines that talk to each other could exacerbate existing social problems and inequities, and how we as designers may avoid this. The basic design guidelines he puts forth are useful, but I think he stops short of truly innovative ideas, instead focusing on the day-to-day interactions between people and machines.

[Paul Chavez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Norman has been building on the ideas in his classic Design of Everyday Things over the years and instead of reading it again, I have enjoyed reading his newer work that shows his evolution of thought on the foundation of DOET. This one had a few sticky ideas for me. Using the activity of a human riding a horse as a metaphor for designing automated products was a eye opener. Machines can more easily attain the kind of give-and-take that an animal has with a human much more easily than the more lofty human-to-human interaction we sometimes expect (I'm talking to you creepy anthropomorphized paper clip!). In addition, he has a list of "Design Rules by Machines to Improve Their Interactions with People". This is an empathetic viewpoint I can related to. The rules are 1) Keep it simple, 2) Give people a conceptual model (from DOET), 3) Give reasons, 4) Make people think they are in control, 5) Continually reassure, and 6) Never label human behavior as "error" (from Star Trek ;).

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some nice ideas (of course) even if it’s an older book.

Implicit Communication - things are naturally expressing their state. Like that one. Lots of good lists like before.

Update to affordable - communication between designer and user. Interesting addition to the thought, but I feel it doesn’t replace the initial concept situational relations between object and its uses.

Weird predictions, and a general optimism about technology that needs to be reconciled with reality of the impacts on culture.

Still sees technology as a thing rather than an evolving set of systems.

Really weird conversation with AI at the end, very late 1990’s.

Fun and brilliant tho. Critical for the design of both growth cycles and the creativity engine.

[Westly Scott LaFleur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having been excited to read this as the sequel to 'The Design of Everyday Things', which impressed me back when I read it in college, I was completely let down. Unlike its predecessor, which felt sophisticated and incisive despite its down to earth tone, this book feels trite and insubstantial. It clumsily meanders around the topics of design and advancing technology without managing to say much, and belabors its already cartoonish analogies. The final chapters, which feature a faux interview between Norman and an imaginary A.I., lack self-awareness to a degree that makes the whole thing feel burlesque (I found myself having to resist physically cringing).

I'm not sure who this book was written for. It wasn't me, and I can't recommend it.

[Kevin Connery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good ideas surrounded by some of the worst (and repeated) strawman arguments and cherry-picking I’ve run across in years. In one paragraph, he points out that machines can’t do something, then he turns around and has them doing just that in a way that no sane individual would permit, much less design hardware to do. And that happened in almost every chapter.It was worth slogging through that BS, though, as there were some solid points among the hyperbole, but I can’t recommend it overall.

[Arnav Shah · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at technologies that may infiltrate our lives in the future and how we can design them to better live in harmony rather than confusion. Many of Norman's warnings are well thought out. However I feel that quite a few of his thoughts on the emergence of future technology are a bit misguided. Nevertheless his philosophies are well placed and he covers some ground that few others dare to consider. For example, I wholeheartedly appreciated his discussion of how even the technologies in cars today take away important feedback from the driver and actually lessen the safety.

[Carl Gauger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donald Norman's latest book (that I am aware of) is good. He tries to analyze how symbiosis might be integrated into automation. By symbiosis, he means the type of close interaction that might be characteristic of a horse and a skillful rider. This is a high expectation for automation technologies, which is where Norman wants to take it. Like any book that takes on the future, there is much here that is tentative--to say the least--but he provides much food for thought and much good analysis of present technological shortcoming in the process.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scary...just. scary. At the end, there's some talk about sentient machines. Holy Crap!

If you like the stuff about design in this book, I highly recommend you read Norman's earlier book, The Design of Everyday Things. In it, he explains design flaws in everything from doorknobs to telephones. Believe me, it's waaay more interesting than it sounds.

[Nathaniel Weiner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rules for human designers:
1) Provide rich, complex and natural signals.
2) Be predictable
3) Provide good conceptual models
4) Make the output understandable
5) Provide continual awareness without annoyance
6) Explore natural mappings

For machines to communicate:
1) Keep things simple
2) Give people a conceptual model
3) Give reasons
4) Make people think they are in control
5) Continually reassure
6) Never Label human behavior as "error"