Donald Norman Quotes

IBM was the original contractor for much of the computer interface design on the film.

Computer science departments have always considered 'user interface' research to be sissy work.

One problem we discovered, for example, was that our "create a new account" button was in the wrong place...By simply moving it to the left side, mirroring the way people read, we saw a huge improvement in the way people used the site.

Most efforts to approximate normal human behavior in software tend to be creepy or annoying.

There is a temptation to have shortcuts and not put in the time and the effort. I think you have to be willing to talk to people and sit sometimes around a table and listen to other people.

We want to continue to explore new possibilities regarding interface and interaction. We experiment different solutions to make interface an important component for immersion rather than just a remote control.

I work hard to reach out to a lot of different people.

I never viewed technology as a replacement for the human experience. I viewed it as something that could liberate the human experience.

Reciprocation was a pretty powerful stimulant to the imagination.

One of the things I've been working on for the past few months is a radical simplification of the interface.

If you work with determination and with perfection, success will follow.

A powerful tool in the early stages of developing scenarios is to pretend the interface is magic. If your persona has goals and the product has magical powers to meet them, how simple could the interaction be? This kind of thinking is useful to help designers look outside the box.

When developers of digital technologies design a program that requires you to interact with a computer as if it were a person, they ask you to accept in some corner of your brain that you might also be conceived of as a program.

Hard work never brings fatigue. It brings satisfaction

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.

You have to take the calculated risk,to earn something

Ironically, the thing that will likely make the least improvement in the ease of use of software-based products is new technology. There is little difference technically between a complicated, confusing program and a simple, fun, and powerful product.

It's not the sugar that makes the tea sweet, but the stirring.

A well-designed and humane interface does not have to be split into beginner and expert subsystems.

I promise you the Lord will bless you in your efforts, for this is His work, and He will guide your prayerful efforts to bring the ordinances and covenants to your ancestors....you can make a powerful contribution. Begin now. I promise you that the Lord will help you find a way. And it will make you feel wonderful.

The family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life. These realities are increasingly under attack from powerful forces, which threaten to disfigure God’s plan for creation.

I am confident that we can do better than GUIs because the basic problem with them (and with the Linux and Unix interfaces) is that they ask a human being to do things that we know experimentally humans cannot do well. The question I asked myself is, given everything we know about how the human mind works, could we design a computer and computer software so that we can work with the least confusion and greatest efficiency?

I don't count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting. That is when I start counting, because then it really counts. That's what makes you a champion.

People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do.

Beliefs are so powerful because they dictate our efforts and actions.