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= Don Norman =


===About===
=== Biography ===
Donald Norman


===Research Interests===
Donald Arthur Norman, born December 25, 1935, is an American researcher, professor, and author.<ref name="wikipedia">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman Don Norman], Wikipedia.</ref> He studied at MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, and completed his doctorate in 1962 with a thesis on sensory thresholds and response biases in detection experiments, advised by R. Duncan Luce.<ref name="wikipedia" />
 
He first retired from the University of California, San Diego, where he founded the Cognitive Science Department, in 1993.<ref name="nng">[https://www.nngroup.com/people/don-norman/ Don Norman, co-founder and board member of Nielsen Norman Group], Nielsen Norman Group.</ref> He then joined Apple as an Apple Fellow and became UX Architect of a three-person group called the User Experience Office, the first use of the term "user experience" in a job title.<ref name="nng" /> He later held an executive position at Hewlett-Packard.<ref name="amacad">[https://www.amacad.org/person/don-norman Don Norman], American Academy of Arts and Sciences.</ref> He also served as co-director of the MMM dual degree program at Northwestern University, which combined an MBA and an engineering degree with a design focus.<ref name="nng" /> He returned to UC San Diego to establish the Design Lab, and retired from it in 2020.<ref name="nng" />
 
He remains Honorary Professor and Founding Director Emeritus of the Design Lab.<ref name="scholar">[https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=h-2JebwAAAAJ&hl=en Don Norman, Donald A. Norman], Google Scholar.</ref> He is also an honorary professor at Tongji University in Shanghai and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.<ref name="amacad" /> He is a co-founder of CHI and received its lifetime achievement award, and is a fellow of the ACM, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the Design Research Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref name="nng" />
 
With Jakob Nielsen he co-founded the Nielsen Norman Group.<ref name="wikipedia" /> He is a board member there and a member of the nonprofit charity The Don Norman Design Award and Summit.<ref name="nng" /> His website is [https://jnd.org jnd.org].<ref name="amacad" />
 
=== Contribution ===
 
Norman is best known for his work in design, usability engineering, and cognitive science, and shaped the development of cognitive systems engineering.<ref name="wikipedia" /> He introduced and popularized affordances, signifiers, and the three levels of emotional design.<ref name="ixdf">[https://ixdf.org/literature/topics/don-norman Who is Don Norman?], Interaction Design Foundation.</ref>
 
His central argument is that when a person fails to operate an object, the fault usually belongs to the design rather than the person. Feedback, mapping, and constraints are treated as variables the designer controls, and a failure in any of them produces behavior that gets misread as user error.
 
In ''The Design of Future Things'' he examined machines that act on their own initiative, arguing for a theory of human-machine interaction that engineers and industrial designers could put into practice.<ref name="britannica">[https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Don-Norman/12354118 Don Norman], Encyclopaedia Britannica.</ref> His more recent work has concerned complex sociotechnical systems and humanity-centered system design.<ref name="scholar" />
 
=== Selected Books ===
 
* ''The Design of Everyday Things'' (1988, as ''The Psychology of Everyday Things''; revised and expanded 2013)<ref name="ixdf" />
* ''Emotional Design''<ref name="amacad" />
* ''The Design of Future Things'' (2007)<ref name="britannica" />
* ''Living with Complexity''<ref name="amacad" />
* ''Design For a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered'' (2023)<ref name="amacad" />
 
=== Related Reading ===
 
* [[The Design of Everyday Things]]
* [[Designing Interactions]]
* [[Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition]]
* [[Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design]]
* [[The Psychology Of Everyday Living]]
* [[The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places]]
 
=== References ===
 
<references />
 
===Related Reading===
* [[Affordance]]
* [[Gulf of Execution]]
* [[Frictional Interface]]
* [[Steve Krug]]
* [[Human-Computer Interaction]]
* [[Designing Interactions]]
 
[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Design]]
[[Category:UX Resources]]


==References==
<references />


[[Category:People]]
[[Category:People]]

Latest revision as of 17:13, 25 August 2026

Don Norman

Biography

Donald Arthur Norman, born December 25, 1935, is an American researcher, professor, and author.[1] He studied at MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, and completed his doctorate in 1962 with a thesis on sensory thresholds and response biases in detection experiments, advised by R. Duncan Luce.[1]

He first retired from the University of California, San Diego, where he founded the Cognitive Science Department, in 1993.[2] He then joined Apple as an Apple Fellow and became UX Architect of a three-person group called the User Experience Office, the first use of the term "user experience" in a job title.[2] He later held an executive position at Hewlett-Packard.[3] He also served as co-director of the MMM dual degree program at Northwestern University, which combined an MBA and an engineering degree with a design focus.[2] He returned to UC San Diego to establish the Design Lab, and retired from it in 2020.[2]

He remains Honorary Professor and Founding Director Emeritus of the Design Lab.[4] He is also an honorary professor at Tongji University in Shanghai and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.[3] He is a co-founder of CHI and received its lifetime achievement award, and is a fellow of the ACM, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the Design Research Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[2]

With Jakob Nielsen he co-founded the Nielsen Norman Group.[1] He is a board member there and a member of the nonprofit charity The Don Norman Design Award and Summit.[2] His website is jnd.org.[3]

Contribution

Norman is best known for his work in design, usability engineering, and cognitive science, and shaped the development of cognitive systems engineering.[1] He introduced and popularized affordances, signifiers, and the three levels of emotional design.[5]

His central argument is that when a person fails to operate an object, the fault usually belongs to the design rather than the person. Feedback, mapping, and constraints are treated as variables the designer controls, and a failure in any of them produces behavior that gets misread as user error.

In The Design of Future Things he examined machines that act on their own initiative, arguing for a theory of human-machine interaction that engineers and industrial designers could put into practice.[6] His more recent work has concerned complex sociotechnical systems and humanity-centered system design.[4]

Selected Books

  • The Design of Everyday Things (1988, as The Psychology of Everyday Things; revised and expanded 2013)[5]
  • Emotional Design[3]
  • The Design of Future Things (2007)[6]
  • Living with Complexity[3]
  • Design For a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered (2023)[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Don Norman, Wikipedia.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Don Norman, co-founder and board member of Nielsen Norman Group, Nielsen Norman Group.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Don Norman, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Don Norman, Donald A. Norman, Google Scholar.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Who is Don Norman?, Interaction Design Foundation.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Don Norman, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
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