Things That Make Us Smart (William Patrick Book)

this is a very good book about the relationship between human and machine from the design and utility perspectives. the message is important, especially when technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous in our life. At times, the book is a bit repetitive. But, overall, a very good book with important message.

5% of this book is gold. The rest is a lot of fluff and meandering.

Where  The Design of Everyday Things  is device-centered, this work analyzes device interaction with a similar degree of rigor but from a user perspective. Norman divides interaction into experiential and reflective modes while considering the strengths and weaknesses of humans and machines. Concluding that human strengths are pattern recognition, perception with spatial navigation and manipulation, and narration and that human weaknesses are poor memory for detail along with a vulnerability to tunnel vision, Norman proposes three guiding principles for design. The first two, the naturalness principle and the perceptual principle, respect human strengths. The former insists that a device's surface representation maps to its internal state in a comprehensible way. The perceptual principle insists that a device convey these state changes by perceptible changes, i.e. visually and aurally. These principles seem to follow directly from the affordances and feedback Norman emphasizes in  The Design of Everyday Things .Alternatively, Norman's third, most novel, principle follows his analysis of human weaknesses. This appropriateness principle insists that machines provide exactly the info needed for a task, i.e. they should limit the detail of their reports and hide the method, though not the organization, of storing information. According to Norman, by following all these principles designers can produce devices that informate rather than automate, i.e. complement humans rather than substitute for humans. However, Norman laments that it is often easier for designers to allow machine needs for accuracy, quantifiable metrics and their insensitivity to physical constraints or user needs to drive design and thereby produce hard technology, which forces users to accommodate the machine, rather than soft technology, which shapes the machine to serve user needs.The arguments of this work seem more theoretical and less practical than those of  The Design of Everyday Things . Further, most of the practical advice and applications of this work appear with greater detail in that book. Consequently, this work may be more gratifying to readers interested in psychology, including learning, as well as artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, Norman's distinction between experiential and reflective modes of interaction is underdeveloped in this work, only to be expanded in the subsequent  Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things .

There's a lot of great information in here, but it reads like a dissertation. For a general UX practitioner, it isn't a quick read, but will give you a handful of epiphanies as you wade through the scientific reporting.

In this book, Donald Norman offers a thoughtful examination of the tools, toys and games that we interact with every day. According to Norman these "things that make us smart can also make us dumb." It is the way that we use and interact with these "things" that will determine their effect on our intelligence. Not only does this text offer a comprehensive history of technology tools, but it also examines the evolution of human thought and cognition.Like Alan Cooper, Norman examines "what is wrong in the design of the technology that requires people to behave in machine-centered ways for which people are not well suited." Norman, however, does not concentrate on the negatives of software design. He presents a look at how we have evolved into our current state in order to make predictions and recommendations about how to proceed into the future.Norman's study of experiential and reflective cognition should be required reading for any teacher. The study could help both new and veteran users of educational technologies make appropriate choices for the use of different software for different learning opportunities. The section on "optimal flow" is useful for educators, software or game designers and cognitive scientists. Doesn't everybody strive for a "continual flow of focused concentration?"In his study of the human mind and distributed cognition, Norman examines some of the differences between humans and other species. One of the key distinctions for me was that humans can create tools to help them "overcome the limitations of brainpower." This is where he makes the connection to how things can make us smart. The philosophical nature of this section of the book was very interesting and useful for me. I believe it could help the reader better understand how social learning theory and situated cognition can have an impact on the work of educators and interactive designers.Overall, this book could be useful for a wide audience of educators, software developers, game designers, interactive designers, cognitive scientists, and students of any of these fields of study. Norman successfully makes connections between many technologies and thought processes. Whether it be the "Wooton Desk and the file cabinet or video games and edutainment, he shows the significance of each and their place in the study of interactive design.

The central tenant of this book is that humans are not that impressive without "thinking aides" (called "artifacts" by the author) to help us solve problems. The author provides convincing evidence about this, then goes on to discuss what makes certain types of artifacts so successful.I enjoyed this book mainly because of the insight I received on how to determine whether an artifacts is effective, and how to make a tool a more effective cognitive artifact.If you work to design, architect, and construct things that people use to help themselves think better, this is a worthwhile book to read.

One might assume by the title that this is yet another book exploring the relationship of technology and humans. And it is...but that is not its sole purpose. Norman is an incredible thinker about human centered or user centered design and useability. I see this more as a book for those interested in the design process, user centered design, affordances, and how to create use-able things, spaces, buildings.Read Normal alongside Henry Petroski to really get a good background in the design process. See also [...] for other resources by Donald Norman.

Another great work from Don. Thanks a lot. Enjoyed reading it. Makes very clear hat humans are good at.

Un livre sur les sciences cognitives très intéressant, en anglais bien sûr, qui traite de l'avenir de l'homme dans notre société et de tout ce qui le rend intelligent.