Web Design and Psychology - The Design of Everyday Things

What is one of the most informative and inspirational books I've ever read and one that helped me when thinking about website design, usability and architecture? It's not what you would think. No, it wasn't an XML for Dummies or a Wordpress 101 book.

It was The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.

This is the book that I recommend to anyone involved in design, especially interactive design and programming. The reason for this is because the online space is, or should be, all about the user experience.

As we discussed in Session 2 on 10.28, before you go down the path of developing your site you need to think carefully about what the site will be about, how will consumers interact with it, and what is the story it will tell. It's easy to forget that the consumer is alone without guidance and trying to figure out how to accomplish what they need to do at your site. It's important to make it easy for them to do so, especially when there could be multiple reasons to be there.

What I love about this book is that it opened my eyes to the psychology of design - which is what the user experience is all about. Here is an example: Think about walking up to a door. If the handle is horizontal, what do you do? Push, right? And if the handle is vertical? You know (or have been trained) to pull it towards you.

But have you ever walked up to a door and the door doesn't act the way you expected? People generally blame themselves for the mistake but in reality it's the door's designer or installer who is wrong, not you. They didn't think about the way we've been trained to interact with the door.

There are cues for websites too. An icon in the upper left (typically a logo) is usually clickable to go back to the home page. When it isn't you get frustrated. And you typically don't equate that with wanting to come back.

This book will resensitize you to the parameters you live with in. To quote: It could forever change how you experience and interact with your physical surroundings, open your eyes to the perversity of bad design and the desirability of good design, and raise your expectations about how things should be designed