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From: norman@sdics.ucsd.EDU (Donald A. Norman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: A Design Philosophy
Message-ID: <399@sdics.ucsd.EDU>
Date: Mon, 5-Oct-87 10:08:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdics.399
Posted: Mon Oct  5 10:08:33 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Oct-87 03:00:52 EDT
References: <828@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <3907@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> <382@mcdsun.UUCP> <3927@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: norman@sdics.UUCP (Donald A. Norman)
Organization: UC San Diego Institute for Cognitive Science
Lines: 40
Summary: Don't blame the user.

I vowed not to respond to this sort of thing, but I can't let bad
design attitudesslip by.

If a design flaw leads to errors, it isn't the user who should be
blamed for making the error.  Telling the user about the danger is not
sufficient.  The proper design avoids the possibily of the error in
the first place.  Users are human, and humans err.  (It is a
fundamental part of our operation, in part, I believe because many of
the information processing features that make us reliable, creative,
and imaginiative have as side effects error.  (This is an informed,
professional opinion, on which I have written much.)

What leads to this weird set of statements that would appear to have
nothing to do with Macs? 

Complaints about those miserable stickers that manufacturers put on
their discs.  That won't scrape off and have to be cut.  That serve no
purpose that I can discover, except that some lawyer probably likes
them.  And that can lead to damage of the drive if they are not
removed and if the user inserts the disk with too much force.

Worse, a psychologist (who should take the side of the user) writes,
>In article <3907@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> psych@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (R.Crispin - Psychology) writes:
> You should not blame the company because you didn't
>look especially when the standard practice is to sticker the gate closed.
...
> Complaining about a company because the individual user is careless is
> not too bright.

What a blow to those of us in the Human-Computer Interaction
profession.  Or who care about and preach User-Centered Design.  I
hereby sentence you to read The Psychology of Everyday Things.  When
it finally gets published (March, 1988).

Donald A. Norman
Institute for Cognitive Science C-015
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093
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