The Design of Everyday Things

Another one of my favorite books and one that I have read several times. Each time I read it, something new connects with my current projects. The first edition of this book was published in 1988 but Don keeps updating it to keep the examples current. Interestingly there are always current examples of good and bad design. I think this book will be like Strunk and Whites, Elements of Style for writing, it will be updated forever. The lessons in the book help you to understand how to "find the right problem" that you are trying to solve.

“Good designers never start by trying to solve the problem given to them: they start by trying to understand what the real issues are. As a result, rather than converge upon a solution, they diverge, studying people and what they are trying to accomplish, generating idea after idea after idea.”

“When all the presentations are over, I congratulate them, but ask: “How do you know you solved the correct problem?” They are puzzled. Engineers and business people are trained to solve problems. Why would anyone ever give them the wrong problem? “Where do you think the problems come from?” I ask. The real world is not like the university. In the university, professors make up artificial problems. In the real world, the problems do not come in nice, neat packages. They have to be discovered. It is all too easy to see only the surface problems and never dig deeper to address the real issues.”

Here is the Link to the Amazon book.