Donald A. Norman

1
Donald A. Norman

• The Gurus Guru

2
Who is Donald Norman?

• Technology Enthusiast
• Background in
• Engineering
• Social Sciences
• Personal Goal To humanize technology
• Executive-level, management consulting on
  human-centered design

3
Who is Donald Norman?

• Currently
• Professor of Computer Science, Northwestern
  University

• Professor Emeritus, University of California, San
  Diego
• Co-founder and Principal of the Nielsen Norman
  Group

4
A Little Background

• Education
• BS, MIT
• MS, University of Pennsylvania
• Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

5
A Little Background

• Apple Fellow
• VP of Advanced Tech. Group, Apple Computer Inc.
• Executive at HP Consumer Product Group and HP
  Labs
• President, Cardean Learning Systems at UNext
  (distance education)
• Founded Dept. of Cognative Science, UCal

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Publications

• Too many to name
• Books of interest
• The Design of Everyday Things
• Turn Signals are the Facial Expressions of
  Automobiles
• Things That Make Us Smart
• The Invisible Computer
• Emotional Design (in progress)

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Usability Warrior

• A user advocate
• Producing human-centered products and services.

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Human Centered Design

• Sees the designer as a champion of the user
  experience Terry Winograd, Bringing Design to
  Software
• focuses on the physical, cognitive and social
  abilities of humans to facilitate understanding
  and ease of use in interactions between people
  and their environments. - Tim Gasperak

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An Example -- Teapots
Three different teapots, one emphasizing
usability (or to be more precise, its absence),
one emphasizing aesthetics, and one practicality.
But which one do I usually use? ... Design
matters, but which design is preferable depends
upon the occasion , the context, and above all,
upon my mood. -- Donald Norman
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Related to IT

• A Leader, yes, but in IT?
• How does his work influence the field of IT?
• How can we learn from his work?

http//www.jnd.org
Donald Norman
http//www.nngroup.com