The Design of Everyday Things
1. The questions this book addresses
How do you create design that people can understand without a manual?
- Core perspective
- User mistakes may be signals of a design problem, not a personal failing
- Good design naturally reveals the actions people can take and the current state of the system
- Basic principles
- Discoverability, signifiers, affordances, mapping, feedback
- The relationship between action and outcome should feel intuitive
2. What designers should take away
Design cues that help users discover their next action
- Screen structure
- Clickable elements and the current state should be visible at a glance
- Controls and results should match the user's mental model
- Feedback
- Immediately communicate loading, selection, success, and failure states
- Create confidence that the user is doing the right thing
3. What to check right away
A checklist to review first when a screen keeps causing confusion
- Action cues
- Check whether users can tell what they can do without explanatory text
- See whether important actions are hidden or look like ordinary text
- Error design
- Check whether there is a way to prevent mistakes or easily undo them
- Reframe repeated mistakes as a design issue, not a user-training issue