If people keep buying poorly designed products, manufacturers and designers will think they are doing the right thing and continue as usual.
Donald A. NormanRead
Complexity is acceptable as long as it is intelligible and necessary. We want to avoid needless complications.
Interpretation
Complexity is okay if it's understandable and necessary, but we should avoid unnecessary complications.
This quote emphasizes the importance of balance in design and problem-solving, suggesting that while complexity is sometimes needed for functionality, it should not obscure understanding or add unnecessary hurdles. The goal is to keep things clear and purposeful, rather than overcomplicating matters without cause.
In practice
In a presentation on design principles, one might quote this to highlight the need for clarity in complex systems.
If people keep buying poorly designed products, manufacturers and designers will think they are doing the right thing and continue as usual.
Also note that invariably when we design something that can be used by those with disabilities, we often make it better for everyone
When you have trouble with things—whether it's figuring out whether to push or pull a door or the arbitrary vagaries of the modern computer and electronics industries—it's not your fault. Don't blame yourself: blame the designer.
User-centered design means working with your users all throughout the project.
Products were once designed for the functions they performed. But when all companies can make products that perform their functions equally well, the distinctive advantage goes to those who provide pleasure and enjoyment while maintaining the power. If functions are equated with cognition, pleasure is equated with emotion; today we want products that appeal to both cognition and emotion.
The hardest part of design ... is keeping features out.
Nimble thought can jump both sea and land.
Oh, he was just angry, we tell ourselves when someone blurts out something he later apologizes for. But a word, once spoken, lingers forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish in spite of all our efforts to preserve them. What we would lose persists, lodged in our minds, and what we would keep is lost to water, moths, moss.
Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.
You're going to make decisions that are not in your best financial interest because they make you happier or more fulfilled or because of your values. You're going to do that because you're a good, smart person.
Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, In spider’s web a truth discerning, Attach one silken strand to you For my returning.
An ignorant man ages like an ox. His flesh may increase, but not his understanding.
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