Don Norman

I concur though per my earlier post I do feel "desktop stagnation" is inevitable and we're already there. You were channeling Don Norman https://jnd.org/ in the best of ways.

Thank you. I came here to make a similar comment. Anytime I see a "tour" I know the interface is going to be annoying to get used to. Don Norman's "Design on Everyday Things" is a must-read for anyone working with UX/UI. Also https://jnd.org/affordances-and-design/ (Of course, these affordances change over time, so some of the conventions/examples are a bit dated, but the spirit remains)

> Design is communication. I assume it’s unintentional, but the rest of your comment twists the original meaning of the maxim[0]. In my experience, “design is communication” generally means a slightly less obvious thing: how through the medium of your design you communicate with the end user. Your points about the importance of communication between designers are valid, but by using that maxim you make it sound like all design is done in teams, which isn’t fair—a single person can design a great product (and need none of the collaboration tools), if they do indeed understand their users well. [0] Here’s a lovely article: https://jnd.org/design_as_communication/

> It's weird to me that people complain over "old and ugly" interfaces. You might be interested in checking out the work of Donald Norman. He makes a great case that attractive things work better. Old isn't necessarily a problem, but ugly is. https://jnd.org/emotion_design_attractive_things_work_better/

"The power of the unaided mind is greatly exaggerated. It is 'things' that make us smart, the cognitive artifacts that allow human beings to overcome the limitations of human memory and conscious reasoning." - Donald A. Norman, Things That Make Us Smart https://jnd.org/things_that_make_us_smart_forbes_article/

In 2007 Donald Norman wrote a piece on command-line interfaces that's pretty cogent: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/ui_breakthroughcomma.html Text UI is a great way to hide complexity but difficult to teach and form habits around. The learning curve is steep and probably something we need to invest more in because "have you read the man page" isn't gonna cut it for most.

Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things [1] and Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles [2] are must-read classics about human interfaces in both physical and "computer" realms. [1] http://www.jnd.org/books.html#33 [2] http://www.jnd.org/books.html#34

There is a name for this approach to design. It's called Activity-Centered Design , and Don Norman has written a bunch about it here: http://jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered_design_considered_harmful.html and here: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/hcd_harmful_a_clari.html Highly recommended reading. I feel like it's a good sign that the community keeps re-inventing this. It means that it has some real legs. Another great example of our best practices slowly strangling good process.

Every time I think about Wintel laptops, I'm reminded of this piece: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly_overrated.html (summary: people buy things with more knobs and lights because the illusion of control gives them the impression that it is more powerful) My Toshiba Satellite has five LEDs in a row on the front. Three of them are on continuously (one turns orange, I think, when it sleeps). One represents hard disk activity, though Task Manager's I/O graph is vastly more useful. One of them has never turned on. I have no idea what it's for. It has an icon above it that sort of looks like a piece of paper. I'm sure someone at Toshiba thought it was a good idea to forgo the anti-reflective screen coating in favor of a few more LEDs. "Consumers will love all the extra power afforded by the paper-light!" he said.

I recommend reading: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered_design_considered_harmful.htm… http://pragprog.com/book/lmuse/designed-for-use

It's worth checking out Don Norman's (the author of The Design of Everyday Things) recommended reading list: http://www.jnd.org/recommended_readings.html I have yet to choose a book from the list that didn't leave me feeling much more informed. If you click on a book in the list it jumps to a description of why he thinks someone should read it. I desperately want to get the Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics, but it's just way too expensive: http://www.jnd.org/recommended_readings.html#000235

Sachin makes an important point about what makes people love a product and stay with it. An important counterpoint, though, is that feature lists sell: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly.html My experience validated Don Norman's. After I read his essay, I removed the carefully crafted sentences on http://ourdoings.com/ describing the experience, and replaced them with ugly sentence fragments cramming as many features as would fit the layout. My KPI for new users spiked. YMMV.

I find a similar trend with some websites where there's little dead-space for a mouse-click to switch the focus off of a control, hyperlink, or widget towards the document window itself. This is also particularly irksome on sites which implement full-background ads. The only "non-hot-zones" end up being small parcels of the titlebar or footer. I recall this concept of "dead/neutral" space mentioned in one Don Norman's books (http://jnd.org).

I definitely appreciate the effort you've gone to. Unfortunately user testing without careful evaluation can wind up hindering or hurting a product. If you look at a site like 37signals (hah, had to make sure I got the capitalization correct - http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1088-how-not-to-apply-for-a-job), they do a great job without it, and manage to upset the great Donald Norman while they're at it (http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/why_is_37signals_so_1.html). I do agree that startups should be doing more. You have done a good job of giving some steps to get started, so kudos.

Along the same lines, Donald Norman (usability guru, started the usability field almost single-handedly with the book "The Design of Everyday Things") recently said: "I've come to a disconcerting conclusion: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs." http://jnd.org/dn.mss/technology_first_needs_last.html You can't ignore customers completely. Apple discovered this with the Lisa computer in the 1980s, which apparently was amazing for its time, but at $10,000 found no market. Perhaps Lisa was the computer Jobs wanted for himself, but it turned out that few others were willing to shell out that kind of money. On the other hand, it is clearly pointless to ask consumers how to design attractive or revolutionary hardware or software - you're the expert, you figure it out. But this doesn't necessarily mean that you ignore target markets altogether - the iPad is innovative, but still clearly focused on a particular set of use cases with a price to make it competitive with netbooks.

> Code Complete by Steve McConnell +1. Also, Rapid Development, by McConnell[0]. I would say that it's even better than Code Complete. It would be considered "quaint," these days, but Writing Solid Code[1], by Steve Maguire, was a seminal book in my education. I still use many of the techniques he mentioned. And I cannot say enough about The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman[2]. That book changed my life. I would consider it required reading, for anyone that develops anything that will be used by other humans. [0] https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/store/rapid-development-9780735691… [1] https://writingsolidcode.com [2] https://jnd.org/the-design-of-everyday-things-revised-and-expanded-edi…

(American) Academia is a complicated matter, so I’ll elide commenting on that. For a thoughtful counterpoint to the necessity argument, see: https://jnd.org/technology_first_needs_last/ (previously discussed on HN)

With nod to Norman’s “The Design of Everyday Things,” including the chapter “Human Error? No, Bad Design.” For reference, an article he also wrote with that title, discussing design and human error in major transportation accidents: https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human_error_no_bad.html

"affordances", amiright? https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html

Granted, but this wasn't some grand discovery by Waymo. The human side of automation [0] is an issue that has been known and written about since at least 1983 by Lisanne Bainbridge and Don Norman in 1990. [0] https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/the_human_side_of_au.html

Donald Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, has an article about that (not touchscreens, but mouse-like device that sounds even worse): http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/interaction_design_f.html

You're absolutely right; South Korea traditionally tended towards making interfaces more complex. "Because Koreans like things to look complex," they responded. It is a symbol: it shows their status. [1] This piece is from 2007, though, and some of the lines in it that refer to the West simply don't apply anymore. I think we all know who made simplicity the new, expensive status symbol. [1]http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly.html

Yes and no, I think. There is also a "memoryless" effect at work that causes new users to favour more complex and presumably powerful products, which they then invest in and are reluctant to switch away from. I'm not sure the resulting network effects in the market are an example of path dependence. There is an article by Don Norman on the complexity phenomenon here: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly.html

Good call, I was also going to mention this until I saw your comment. It appears there are many UK city sites that are trying to implement these principles. Given that the principles include accessibility guidelines [0] and transparency of intent [1], I'd prefer to see more city sites designed this way. (That is if the sites in question faithfully implement the design principles) Regarding the site OP linked, even if a little glossy, it's certainly not a disaster of usability. In fact, I tend to believe in the aesthetic-usability effect [2] in the case of not-so-design-savvy users, the added sheen might actually motivate them to use the city portal more often. [0]https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples#sixth [1]https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples#tenth [2]http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/emotion_design_at.html

It's more likely that the problem is because there's very little perceived affordance[1] that differentiates interactive elements from inert design. [1] http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html

Its not that a simpler shape isn't easier to process, its that its harder to infer purpose when there is so little information (like in the case of Metro). A button is something that needs to be 'pressed' so it should look like it can be- and by doing so you understand that it is a button much faster. Donald Norman and Jakob Neilsen have long preached this and they have a bunch of info on affordances and why they work: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html More recently see Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think"

There is a trend in UX towards products so simple (by cutting features) that any user can immediately instantly pick it up without a learning curve. It's what prompted Don Norman to write the article around 2007 titled "Simplicity is not the Answer" - http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_not_th.html (quoted in the blog post) and a book "Living with Complexity" - http://www.jnd.org/books/living-with-complexity.html

Yup, perceived affordances. http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and_design.html

There is no up/down button, just a keypad with numbers on them. People are accustomed to looking for the up button and, upon not finding one, immediately get into a confused state. If you need lengthy instructions to show someone how to use your UI, you should reconsider your UI. http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/are_the_new_elevators_bad_design.html

Tangentially related to post. Don Norman's essay on how command lines are better suited in a graphical world for various reasons. (of course a lot of us here feel this here already). http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/ui_breakthrough-command_line_interfaces.html