A collection of 9 posts

How did we reach the point where our technology is more important than people? How can we reverse this to ensure that technologies are designed with people in mind, more humane, more collaborative, and more beneficial to the needs of people, societies, and humanity?

In his book Overcrowded, Roberto Verganti argues that the rule "don't criticize" is flawed. Criticism is good -- it leads to radical innovation. This is an important book for designers: read it!

The design of human-computer systems used to focus upon the negative, the breakdowns that confused and confounded people. Now it is time to move to the next level, to focus upon the positive, systems that are enjoyable and pleasurable. We need systems that delight as well as inform, systems that...

"Life is filled with unpleasant experiences. Not only do we survive them, but in hindsight we tend to minimize the bad and amplify the good." This is the start of my essay "Selective Memories" published by Metropolis Magazine....

TED is a fascinating conference. I've given two talks there over the years and serve on their advisory board. TED used to be a by-invitation conference only, but now it is

June 2002. (Also published as Norman, D. A. (2002). Emotion and design: Attractive things work better. Interactions Magazine, ix (4), 36-42). Advances in our understanding of emotion and affect have implications for the science of design. Affect changes the operating parameters of cognition: posi...

(Norman, D. A., Ortony, A., & Russell, D. M. (2003). Affect and machine design: Lessons for the development of autonomous machines. IBM Systems Journal, 42 (1), 38-44.. Originally presented at the IBM Autonomic Computing Summit at T J Watson Research Center, May 14-15, 2002) Abstract Human be...

Products differ in their appeal on the three design dimensions, but so too do people and situations. Vegetable peelers are primarily bought for their behavior. Wall clocks might be bought for visceral appeal or reflective image. Some people are behavioral, some are visceral. Some reflective, cons...

How many times have you had to fight hard for the ability to do field studies and other observations at the very start of the project? How many times have you patiently explained that taking time now would be rewarded by faster time to market overall? And how many times were you successful? The H...