Friday, October 27, 2006

the design of everyday things

I have just finished reading "the design of everyday things" by Donald Norman. This is classic book about the design of things for "users". Donald complains about the bad design of things where you need to read many pages of the manual to know how to do simple things. He gives many examples of bad designs of things such as doors and water taps. The sections on computers are now very out of date, although his description of his ideal diary is getting close to the functionality provided by yahoo calender. The next time someone tells you to RTFM (read the f*cking manual) about some software, tell them that Craig says program that need manuals are wa*k. If they tell you to look at the source code, then give them a slap.