Donald Norman
Encyclopedia
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
, design and usability engineering
Usability engineering
Usability engineering is a field that is concerned generally with human-computer interaction and specifically with making human-computer interfaces that have high usability or user friendliness...
and a co-founder and consultant with the Nielsen Norman Group
Nielsen Norman Group
Nielsen Norman Group is a usability consulting company created by user experience experts Donald Norman, Jakob Nielsen, and Bruce Tognazzini. Besides these three principals, there are many lesser known experts in the company....
. He is the author of the book The Design of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman about the design of simple objects, and why some objects please their users while others frustrate them....
.
Much of Norman's work involves the advocacy of user-centered design
User-centered design
In broad terms, user-centered design or pervasive usability is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process...
. His books all have the underlying purpose of furthering the field of design, from doors to computers. Norman has recently taken a controversial stance in saying that the design research
Design research
Design research investigates the process of designing in all its many fields. It is thus related to Design methods in general or for particular disciplines. A primary interpretation of design research is that it is concerned with undertaking research into the design process. Secondary...
community has had little impact in the innovation of products, and that whereas academics can help in refining existing products, it is technologists that accomplish the breakthroughs.
Norman splits his time between co-directing the dual-degree MBA and Engineering program Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
and consulting with the Nielsen Norman Group
Nielsen Norman Group
Nielsen Norman Group is a usability consulting company created by user experience experts Donald Norman, Jakob Nielsen, and Bruce Tognazzini. Besides these three principals, there are many lesser known experts in the company....
. Norman announced that he would no longer teach full-time after the 2009-2010 academic year.
Norman is an active Distinguished Visiting Professor
Distinguished Visiting Professor
Distinguished Visiting Professor is an academic title bestowed by American universities on prominent scholars who have been invited to teach a course in their area of expertise for one semester or more to enrolled undergraduate and graduate students....
at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology where he spends two months a year teaching. He also holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
at the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
.
He is on numerous educational, private, and public sector advisory boards including the editorial board of Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
.
Early academics
In 1957 Norman received an Bachelor of ScienceBachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) from MIT. Norman continued through college until 1962, in the process earning M.S. in EECS
EECS
EECS may refer to:* Electrical Engineering & Computer Science* European Energy Certificate System...
and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
from the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
.
After graduating, Norman took up a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and within a year became a Lecturer.
After four years with the Center, Norman took a position as an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
(UCSD). Although he started as an experimental and mathematical psychologist, Norman's focus shifted to cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
. Norman eventually became founding chair of the Department of Cognitive Science and chair of the Department of Psychology.
At UCSD, Norman was a founder of the Institute for Cognitive Science and one of the organizers of the Cognitive Science Society
Cognitive Science Society
The Cognitive Science Society is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields who hold the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind...
(along with Roger Schank
Roger Schank
Roger Schank is an American artificial intelligence theorist, cognitive psychologist, learning scientist, educational reformer, and entrepreneur.-Academic career:...
, Allan Collins
Allan M. Collins
Allan M. Collins is an American cognitive scientist and Professor Emeritus of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy...
, and others), which held its first meeting at the UCSD campus in 1979.
Cognitive engineering career
Norman made the transition from cognitive science to cognitive engineering by entering the field as a consultant and writer. The article "The Trouble with Unix" in DatamationDatamation
Datamation was a print computer magazine published in the United States between 1957 and 1998. When first published it wasn't clear there would be a significant market for a computer magazine given how few computers there were...
catapulted him to a position of prominence in the computer world. Soon after, his career took off outside of academia, although he still remained active at UCSD until 1993. Norman continued his work to further human centered design by serving on numerous University and Government advisory boards such as with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...
(DARPA). He currently serves on numerous committees and advisory boards like at Motorola, the Toyota Information Technology Center, TED Conference, Panasonic
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
, Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
and many more.
Norman published several important books during his time at UCSD, one of which, User Centered System Design, obliquely referred to the university in the initials of its title.
In 1995, Norman left UCSD to join Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
, initially as an Apple Fellow as a User Experience Architect (The first to use the phrase User Experience
User experience
User experience is the way a person feels about using a product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership, but it also includes a person’s perceptions of the practical aspects such...
in a title), and then as the Vice President of the Advanced Technology Group
Advanced Technology Group
The Advanced Technology Group was a corporate research laboratory at Apple Computer from 1986 to 1997. ATG was started by Larry Tesler in October 1986 to study long term research into future technologies that were beyond the time frame or organizational scope of any individual product group. Over...
. He later worked for Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
before joining with Jakob Nielsen
Jakob Nielsen
Jakob Nielsen is the name of:* Jakob Nielsen , Danish mathematician known for automorphisms surfaces work* Jakob Nielsen , Danish leading web usability consultant...
to form the Nielsen Norman Group
Nielsen Norman Group
Nielsen Norman Group is a usability consulting company created by user experience experts Donald Norman, Jakob Nielsen, and Bruce Tognazzini. Besides these three principals, there are many lesser known experts in the company....
in 1998. He returned to academia as a professor of computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
where he is co-Director of the Segal Design Institute
Segal Design Institute
The Segal Design Institute is an educational institute within the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. Segal is dedicated to the study of human-centered design, in context, at the undergraduate and graduate level. The Segal Design Institute is co-directed by J...
.
Norman has received many awards for his work. He received an honorary degree from the University of Padua
University of Padua
The University of Padua is a premier Italian university located in the city of Padua, Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. It is among the earliest universities of the world and the second...
in Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
, Italy. In 2001 he was inducted as a Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of the Association for Computing Machinery
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
, and in 2006 received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science.
User-centered design
In his book The Design of Everyday ThingsThe Design of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman about the design of simple objects, and why some objects please their users while others frustrate them....
, originally titled The Psychology of Everyday Things, Norman describes the psychology behind what he deems good and bad design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
, through case studies, and proposes design principles. He exalts the importance of design in our everyday lives, and the consequences of errors caused by bad design.
In the book, Norman uses the term "user-centered design
User-centered design
In broad terms, user-centered design or pervasive usability is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process...
" to describe design based on the needs of the user, leaving aside what he deems secondary issues like aesthetics. User-centered design involves simplifying the structure of tasks, making things visible, getting the mapping right, exploiting the powers of constraint, designing for error, explaining affordance
Affordance
An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, which allows an individual to perform an action. For example, a knob affords twisting, and perhaps pushing, while a cord affords pulling...
s and seven stages of action
Seven stages of action
Seven stages of action is a term coined by the usability consultant Donald Norman.He explains this phrase in chapter two of his book The Design of Everyday Things, in the context of explaining the psychology of a person behind the task performed by him or her.- History :The history behind the...
.
Other topics of the book include:
- The Psychopathology of Everyday Things
- The Psychology of Everyday Actions
- Knowledge in the Head and in the World
- Knowing What to Do
- To Err Is Human
- The Design Challenge
Psychology
- Human information processing: An introduction to psychology (1972) in collaboration with Peter H. Lindsay (first author)
- Memory and attention (1977)
- Learning and memory (1982)
Usability
- Direct manipulation interfaceDirect manipulation interfaceIn computer science, direct manipulation is a human-computer interaction style which involves continuous representation of objects of interest, and rapid, reversible, incremental actions and feedback. The intention is to allow a user to directly manipulate objects presented to them, using actions...
s (1985) in collaboration with E. L. Hutchins (first author) and J.D. Hollan - User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction (1986) (editor in collaboration with Stephen Draper)
- The Design of Everyday ThingsThe Design of Everyday ThingsThe Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman about the design of simple objects, and why some objects please their users while others frustrate them....
(1988, originally under the title The Psychology of Everyday Things) (Newprint 2002) - Turn signals are the facial expressions of automobiles (1992)
- Things That Make Us Smart (1993)
- The Invisible Computer (1998)
- Emotional DesignEmotional DesignEmotional Design is both the title of a book by Donald Norman and of the concept it represents. The main issue is that emotions have a crucial role in the human ability to understand the world, and how they learn new things. For example: aesthetically pleasing objects appear to the user to be more...
(2004) - The Design of Future Things (2007)
- Living with Complexity, (2010)
- Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine CD-ROM by the Voyager CompanyVoyager CompanyThe Voyager Company was a pioneer in CD-ROM production in the 1980s and early 1990s, and published The Criterion Collection, a pioneering home video collection of classic and important contemporary films on Laserdisc. It was founded in 1984 by four partners: Jon Turell, Bill Becker, Aleen Stein and...
combining Design of Every Day Things, Turn signals are the facial expressions of automobiles, Things That Make Us Smart, and various technical reports (1994)
See also
- Executive system
- Human action cycleHuman action cycleThe human action cycle is a psychological model which describes the steps humans take when they interact with computer systems. The model was proposed by Donald A. Norman, a scholar in the discipline of human-computer interaction. The model can be used to help evaluate the efficiency of a user...
- Human-computer interaction
- Interaction designInteraction designIn design, human–computer interaction, and software development, interaction design, often abbreviated IxD, is "the practice of designing interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services." Like many other design fields interaction design also has an interest in form but its main...