Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles
Contributors
By Don Norman
Buy from Other Retailers:
- On Sale
- May 21, 1993
- Page Count
- 224 pages
- Publisher
- Basic Books
- ISBN-13
- 9780201622362
“An engaging work by a benign technocrat who has designs on our minds.”—Kirkus
From water faucets and airplane cockpits to the concept of “real time” and the future of memory, this wide-ranging tour through technology provides a new understanding of how the gadgets that surround us affect our lives. Donald Norman explores the plight of humans living in a world ruled by a technology that seems to exist for its own sake, oblivious to the needs of the people who use it. Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles is an intelligent, whimsical look at our love/hate relationship with machines, as well as a persuasive call for the humanization of modern design.
Genre:
-
“Norman is concerned that engineers often market technology with little regard for the consumers who will have to interact with hardware as the product. Writing clearly with humor and arresting insights, Norman analyzes such diverse topics as refrigerators as message centers in the home and pilots who place empty coffee cups over certain switches to avoid cockpit errors.”Library Journal
-
“It's coping with the technology of quotidian life that wears us down, of course. Norman (Cognitive Psychology/UC San Diego) reassures us that it's not our fault: It's design flaws…. Norman argues for logical relations between a stove's knobs and its burners (“affordance mapping”) and for the efforts a writer owes to readers….. An engaging work by a benign technocrat who has designs on our minds.”Kirkus
-
What they’re saying about Donald Norman
“One of today’s most creative cognitive psychologists.” —Douglas R. Hofstadter, author of Gödel, Escher, Bach
“Psychologists accuse us of being out of touch with our feelings. Don Norman demonstrates that we aren’t even in touch with our hardware.”—Ralph Caplan, author of By Design
“The guru of workable technology.”—Newsweek
