Looking Back, Looking Forward
Donald A. Norman

Nielsen Norman Group, Northwestern University, KAIST Industrial Design | [e-mail]

 

Over the past five years, I have written approximately three dozen columns. What has been learned? What will come? Obviously, it is time for reflection.

My goal has always been to incite thought, debate, and understanding. Those of us in the field of interaction—whether students, researchers or practitioners; whether designers or programmers, synthesizers or analyzers—all share some common beliefs and ideals. One of my jobs is to challenge these established beliefs, for often when they are examined, they rest on an ill-defined platform with no supporting evidence other than the longevity that exempts them from examination. We need a rigorous foundation for our work—to question that which is not firmly supported by evidence, even if it appears obvious. Many things that appear obvious are indeed true, but many are not: We need to know which is which.

I’ve questioned the role of usability in products, suggesting that although it is important, it is never the most important characteristic. I’ve questioned the time-honored prescription that we should design products by first engaging in user research, then a period of iterative rapid prototyping, assessment, and reconceptu-alization. Although this sequence seems eminently logical and necessary, it seldom works in the time- and money-constrained world of product development.

The research community has argued for the critical importance of doing research first, but with continual failure. This should be a signal that the logical time course simply cannot be accommodated by the reality of product schedules, so that other solutions and approaches must be developed. We cannot continue to argue that everyone else is wrong.

The research-practice gap is real, I have argued, and we should stop pretending that researchers and practitioners speak the same language. Human-centered design (HCD), I argued, can be harmful, for, among other things, it is really a sophisticated take on design by committee, guaranteeing continual good results. But what if the goal isn’t merely the good but rather the great and wonderful? Then HCD gets in the way. Great designers do not use HCD. And as a corollary, great designers have both great successes and great failures. HCD promises to avoid both these extremes.

Everyone, it seems, cries out
for simplicity: We need simpler
products, goes the cry. But when
I examined simplicity, I found
that even those who cried the
loudest actually complained
when given simple products.
Simplicity, I have argued several
times, should never be the goal.
The world is complex and so too
must be our tools. Complexity is
good. The quest for simplicity is
misguided—what people need is
understandable products. They
need the power that complexity
provides, but they seek the com-
fort of things that can be under-
stood. It is confusion that they
dislike, not complexity. This is a
great finding, for it puts the major
onus on designers: Transform
complexity into products that are
understandable, as such things
are judged to be simple.

 

The Lack of Feedback I have examined many themes in my column over the years. Have they made a difference? How can one tell? If I am to judge by the paucity of email I receive, the infrequent citations, even in blogs, and the need for me to repeat many of my arguments year after year, I would have to say that the columns have not had any impact. Is this due to the work’s inelegance, the passiv-ity of this audience, or perhaps the nature of the venue itself? I reject the first reason out of self-interest and the second out of my experience that in person, you are all a most vocal group. That leaves the third reason.

November + December 2010