Rating: 
Summary: This is a MUST READ for designers
Review: As I get older, I begin to see that designing is really about seeing, hearing, thinking and understanding at a higher level. If you're looking for an easy how-to for making your website or product punchier, this isn't for you. For me, the book was a perfect read. I am always hunting and gathering for the meaning of art and design, to push my own work forward, and to gain an advantage over my competitors in terms of design. Thus, Norman's book was right up my alley. His deconstruction of design into its visceral, behavioral and reflective aspects was powerful and compelling, and I believe this book is actually a manifesto that will eventually launch a new school of thought in design. The second half of the book delves into even more complex and forward-thinking issues, and I found it useful for FORCING myself to read and think out of the box. It's an absolute must-have book for anyone interested in understanding the structure of the new design revolution and transforming their perspective on the art of designing at an emotional level.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but not great
Review: I agree with some of the other reviews. The first half of the book is pretty informative about the visceral, behavioral and reflective aspects of design. However, once the author started going into robotics, I began to lose interest. The topic of emotions and robots seems completely out of place in a book like this in our current time (a scientific journal might be a better home for this type of info). It would have been nice if he would have given examples of how to apply his ideas to today's products and interfaces rather than tomorrow's robots.
Rating:
Summary: Runs out of gas
Review: I looked forward to receiving this book after reading an excerpt. I was partially disappointed. The first half of the book showing why good aesthetics is important was great. The second half dealing with the incorporation of emotions into robots was disappointing. Buy the book for the first half. Also buy Postrel's book on the Substance of Style.
Rating:
Summary: More Theory than Practice
Review: I love Donald Norman. I love the work he does, and I love what he's taught me. I got so much from The Design of Everyday Things. I got something out of Things That Make Us Smart. I didn't get much out of this one at all. I think this is because I'm an impatient reader. For example, I don't read fiction. I want to read facts about things I can apply in a practical way. This book is much more about theory than practical applications. I'm sure some people love reading theory, and they will love this book. But if you're like me and really want a book to deliver information you can use on every page, you should buy The Design of Everyday Things instead, if you haven't already.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthwhile
Review: I'm a huge fan of Donald A. Norman, and I'm working on reading every book he ever wrote. I'm now getting down to the very old and obscure ones like "Attention and Memory" (1968!). This new book combines the ideas of his previous work with some fascinating new psychological knowledge, so it is definitely worthwhile. One thing that makes Norman such a good author is that he gives very graphic analogies to explain his ideas. One sentence that really made me think was that if robots had no idea whether something was safe or not, they could possibly just sit there, afraid to do anything - he likens this to confidence in humans. So it seems like thinking about how robots should work can only help figure out more about humans. That's why I think his new work on robotics adds yet another useful dimension to the work of a man whose focus has been a great blend of academia and business. Now he is tying more and more of those ideas together, blending them with collaboration and new research, so I hope he stays a prolific writer. Unfortunately I was not everwhelmed by the book, but it is all very sensible and useful. I wish he had gotten more into the passion we feel when something is just superb. I have had that feeling when reading many similar books, like "The Tipping Point", "Don't Make Me Think", and even Norman's own "The Design of Everyday Things". So come to think of it, maybe writing one of those great books plus many other very good books is plenty to ask of a human being.
Rating:
Summary: Worthwhile
Review: I'm a huge fan of Donald A. Norman, and I'm working on reading every book he ever wrote. I'm now getting down to the very old and obscure ones like "Attention and Memory" (1968!). This new book combines the ideas of his previous work with some fascinating new psychological knowledge, so it is definitely worthwhile. One thing that makes Norman such a good author is that he gives very graphic analogies to explain his ideas. One sentence that really made me think was that if robots had no idea whether something was safe or not, they could possibly just sit there, afraid to do anything - he likens this to confidence in humans. So it seems like thinking about how robots should work can only help figure out more about humans. That's why I think his new work on robotics adds yet another useful dimension to the work of a man whose focus has been a great blend of academia and business. Now he is tying more and more of those ideas together, blending them with collaboration and new research, so I hope he stays a prolific writer. Unfortunately I was not everwhelmed by the book, but it is all very sensible and useful. I wish he had gotten more into the passion we feel when something is just superb. I have had that feeling when reading many similar books, like "The Tipping Point", "Don't Make Me Think", and even Norman's own "The Design of Everyday Things". So come to think of it, maybe writing one of those great books plus many other very good books is plenty to ask of a human being.
Rating:
Summary: Some practical info on design, but some far-off fantasy
Review: If you're looking for a fairly practical discussion of the ways that people interact with products and how more than just behavioral qualities are measured by your customers, the first half of the book will prove quite useful. It expands and ties nicely into common practices of market segmentation and usability studies, providing both concrete advice for optimizing your product for whatever your adoption goals are, as well as a theoretical framework for understanding user behavior.
There's also a large section near the end about robotics and the future. While it's interesting, it reads more like science fiction or the typical dicsussions that you have in either a mobile robot at a university or a AAAI conference. I personally think the book could've stood just as well without it.
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking with curious application
Review: In this book as with his earlier works, The Design of Everyday Things and The Invisible Computer, Donald Norman describes a new and insightful perspective on design. In Emotional Design we consider three levels of design - visceral, behavioral, and reflective. Visceral design works on the immediate level of our senses - enjoying the texture of a material or being impressed by the look of a cherry red sportscar. Behavioral design was the focus of his book The Design of Everyday Things - does the thing perform its function well and is it easy to use? Reflective design is about the meaning of the thing - does it express wealth or cool or is it fun to use? There are many great examples that explore these dimensions. Philippe Starck's juicer, shown on the book's cover, succeeds with all three facets: it is visually striking and novel, works well as a juicer, and becomes an elegant, sophisticated conversation-starter. Or consider a purely reflective case: an espresso machine that isn't very attractive or easy to use but in skilled hands can brew excellent coffee. Norman spends the last quarter of the book considering some applications of his new approach to design. The examples here are all robots. Unfortunately I had a difficult time relating to these examples and found them too theoretical and more like curiosities.
Rating: 
Summary: The author is so good yet this book is very bad
Review: Norman's writing is usually entertaining and informative. This book was hastily written. It is very short on useful insight or information. If you want to learn about design, there is nothing here.
Rating:
Summary: Great Ideas on Product Design
Review: People have needs, and products exist to fulfill those needs. People have a need for food, shelter, transportation and personal organization. Products like houses, cars and PDAs exist to fulfill these needs. It should go without saying that some needs are more important than others.
Don Norman has spent much of his life advocating for one of the fundamental needs that engineers often overlook: useability. This is human-centric or behavioral design.
In Emotional Design, Don Norman introduces the reader to the psychological underpinnings for this fundamental need, and finds that there are two other fundamental needs, too. These needs stem from the reflective, behavioral and visceral levels of cognition and affect. The visceral level is immediate and direct, reacting to the look, color or sound of a product and feeding in to the behavioral level. The behavioral level is concerned with how products function, and feeds in to and is affected by the reflective level. The reflective level is where we make value judgments, think about things, and where memory impacts our experiences.
As Norman states, people react to--and interact with--everything and everyone at all three levels; it's a basic fact of our psyche. Behavioral design, for which Norman has been an advocate for decades, works primarily at only the behavioral level. To make products that work even better, Norman argues that products must fully address people's (largely unspoken) needs at all three levels.
This isn't the same as "seeing people as needy, weak and emotionally dependent," as one reviewer claimed. Far from it: just as good behavioral design results in better communication with the user, Norman's intent with Emotional Design is that communication be further improved, and that it become a two-way street.
The value of this, as he shows in the beginning of the book, is that products work better when they interact with the user on the reflective and visceral levels in addition to the behavioral level.
|
