Don Norman Ux Quotes

Often people will use their own conceptual models of the world to determine the perceived causal relationship between the thing being blamed and the result. The word perceived is critical: the causal relationship does not have to exist; the person simply has to think it is there.

Steve Krug Don’t Make Me Think Steven Portigal Interviewing Users Laura Klein UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design Don Norman Design of Everyday Things Erika Hall Just Enough Research

Everyone sometimes behaves in a way that is strange, bizarre, wrong or inappropriate. When we do this, we attribute it to our environment. When others do it, we attribute it to their personality.

Discoverability results from appropriate application of five fundamental psychological concepts covered in the next few chapters: affordances, signifiers, constraints, mappings, and feedback. But there is a sixth principle, perhaps most important of all: the conceptual model of the system.

Engineers, moreover, make the mistake of thinking that logical explanation is sufficient: “If only people would read the instructions,” they say, “everything would be all right.” Engineers are trained to think logically. As a result, they come to believe that all people must think this way, and they design their machines accordingly. When people have trouble, the engineers are upset, but often for the wrong reason. “What are these people doing?” they will wonder. “Why are they doing that?” The problem with the designs of most engineers is that they are too logical. We have to accept human behavior the way it is, not the way we would wish it to be.

Communication is especially important when things go wrong. It is relatively easy to design things that work smoothly and harmoniously as long as things go right. But as soon as there is a problem or a misunderstanding, the problems arise. This is where good design is essential.