“Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability – they should go hand in hand”
BIOGRAPHY
In the beginning was university life…
Don Norman comes from the scientific world. After a license in electrical and computer engineering in the prestigious institution of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 1957, he will continue his momentum by obtaining a master's degree in the same field and a doctorate in mathematical psychology in 1962 in the University of Pennsylvania. .
After these diplomas and always eager to learn and share, Norman established a post-doctoral partnership with the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard University and became a lecturer in the same year.
He then leaves for theUCSD (University of California, San Diego) where he founded the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and the Society of Cognitive Sciences with which he held his first conference on the same San Diego campus in 1979.
…And cognitive engineering was!
Norman's transition from Cognitive Science to Cognitive Engineering came when he entered the field as a consultant and writer. The triggering article, which catapulted him as the bridgehead of the computer world, was undoubtedly his 1981 reflection “The Truth About the Unix System: Its User Interface is Horrible!”. Shortly after, his new dimension naturally led him to leave the university system, even if he remained active within UCSD until 1993! He therefore continued his research until he developed the concept of “human-centered design” during his various interventions with many universities and his activity as a consultant for several consulting firms to the Government (in particular that of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)).
He still intervenes today for many committees or consulting firms for major brands such as Motorola, Toyota, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Panasonic or the TED talks, for the best known.
When he left UCSD in 1993, he joined Apple Computer, initially as an “Apple Fellow” (an honorary title for internal use that almost all developers dream of) as aUser Experience Architect, then as Vice President of the Advanced Technology Group. Donald Norman was the first to use the term User Experience on a business card!
He will work a little later for Hewlett-Packard before founding with Jacob Nielsen in 1998 the Nielsen Norman Group, a consulting agency specializing in Computer User Interfaces and User Experience in a more global way.
CONTRIBUTION IN THE FIELD OFUX
Major publications and related concepts
[testimonial] “Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible.”[/ testimonial]
Reference book by the author where he applies himself to explaining how design can serve as a communication between the object and the user but also how to optimize this communication to make the experience of using this same object a source of pleasure.Norman develops there the notion of affordance (ability of an object to suggest its own use, therefore without instructions) applied to design and also popularizes the concept of “user-centered design”. This concept therefore implies:
- Simplify task structure
- make things visible
- Properly map actions, features and needs
- Harness the power of constraint
- Designer for error
This work will be completely reworked by Norman himself in 2007 under the title The future of everyday things
[testimonial] “Good designers worry a lot about the physical feel of their products. Physical touch and feel can make a huge difference in your appreciation of their creations. Consider the delights of smooth, polished metal, or soft leather, or a soil…”[/ testimonial]
Emotional design is as much the title of the book as the concept it represents, namely, how emotions affect the human ability to understand the world around us and to learn new things.For example, an aesthetically pleasing object will appear to the user as more effective by virtue of its sensual appeal.
To explain this phenomenon, Norman relies on the classic model of ABC attitudes (Affect, Behavior and Cognitive for Affect, Behavioral and Cognitive) but transposed to design. Thus, the design is perceived by the users through 3 dimensions:
- Visceral : which directly relates to aesthetics, to the feeling of the appearance of objects
- behavioral : the usefulness of objects and their ease of use
- reflective : rationalization and intellectualization of the product, what the owner of the product thinks that this one can bring him in terms of image or pride
A good design must therefore address these three dimensions at the same time.
“Learning should take place when it is needed, when the learner is interested, not according to some arbitrary, fixed schedule”
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UX-CERTIFIED® by Nielsen Norman Group
From 12 to 16 November 2018
UX-Republic – Paris Saint-Lazare
For the first time in France, UX-Republic Digital Training Center offers you, in its premises in Paris, a new training in collaboration with Nielsen Norman Group.
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Quentin BOUISSOU – UX-Evangelist @UX-Republic
