Don Norman - Northwestern University, US

Don Norman

“’Bad design is bad business,” says usability guru Don Norman

His book Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things marks the transition from usability to aesthetics. The emphasis should be on a well-rounded, cohesive product that looks good, works well, and gives pride to the owner.

In his latest book, The Design of Future Things, Norman offers a consumer-oriented theory of natural human-machine interaction that can be put into practice by the engineers and industrial designers of tomorrow's thinking machines.


Dr. Norman is the author or co-author of fourteen books, with translations into sixteen languages, including: The Design of Everyday Things, Things That Make Us Smart, and The Invisible Computer: Why good products can fail. Business Week has called this “the bible of the ‘post PC’ thinking.”

Don Norman is a professor at Northwestern University, and the co-director of Northwestern's Segal Design Institute.

He is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an executive consulting firm that helps companies produce human-centered products and services. He is co-director of Northwestern's Segal Design Institute, founded by Crate & Barrel creators Gordon and Carole Segal. He has been vice president of Apple Computer and an executive at Hewlett Packard. He was President of the Learning Systems division of UNext, an early, online education company.

Dr. Norman serves on many advisory boards, such as Chicago’s Institute of Design and Encyclopedia Britannica. He is a fellow of many organizations, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer & Cognitive Science from the Franklin Institute (Philadelphia), honorary degrees from the University of Padova (Italy) and the Technical University of Delft (the Netherlands), the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from SIGCHI, the professional organisation for Computer-Human Interaction, the Mental Health award for contributions to Business from Psychology Today, and the Taylor Award for outstanding contribution to the field of Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology from the American Psychological Association.





Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things Emotional Design articulates the profound influence of the feelings that objects evoke, from our willingness to spend thousands of dollars on Gucci bags and Rolex watches, to the impact of emotion on the everyday objects of tomorrow. Norman draws on a wealth of examples and the latest scientific insights to present a bold exploration of the objects in our everyday world. Emotional Design will appeal not only to designers and manufacturers but also to managers, psychologists, and general readers who love to think about their stuff.

The Design of Everyday Things This book is part polemic, part science, part serious, and part fun. It examines the effect of poor design and equipment failure on human behavior. Intended for a general audience, it covers user-centered design, the psychopathology of everyday things, and the psychology of everyday actions.




Keynote: Cautious Cars and Cantankerous Kitchens & Emotional Design: Total User Experience