The Design Of Everyday Things

The ultimate guide to human-centered design
Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door.
The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization.
The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time.

The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how -- and why -- some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.

• Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (3rd Edition) (Voices That Matter)
• 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Voices That Matter)
• Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
• Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction
• Design. Think. Make. Break. Repeat.: A Handbook of Methods
• Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines
• Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design
• Set Phasers on Stun: And Other True Tales of Design, Technology, and Human Error
• Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions
• Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research