Quotes About Usability

You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone. I think you do to use an Android phone.

We want the average person to use it and think that it makes the experience of using Pinterest better.

Every noun in your microinteraction should be unique. If you have two of the same nouns, consider combining them. Also make sure that any two (or more) nouns that look the same also behave the same. Don't have two similar buttons that act completely different. Objects that behave differently should look differently. Likewise, don't have the same noun work differently in different places.

Users need to be able to find content before they can use it — findability precedes usability.

The design of good interfaces takes time and ingenuity.

Designers are not users.

Also note that invariably when we design something that can be used by those with disabilities, we often make it better for everyone

Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don't care as much about attractive sites and pretty design.

Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.

Users are not designers.

Behavioral design is all about feeling in control. Includes: usability, understanding, but also the feel.

Why do we need to know about the human mind? Because things are designed to be used by people, and without a deep understanding of people, the designs are apt to be faulty, difficult to use, difficult to understand.

Design is successful only if the final product is successful—if people buy it, use it, and enjoy it, thus spreading the word. A design that people do not purchase is a failed design, no matter how great the design team might consider it.

Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself.

Once again, the designer should assume that people will be interrupted during their activities and that they may need assistance in resuming their operations.

Design is concerned with how things work, how they are controlled, and the nature of the interaction between people and technology.

We must design our technologies for the way people actually behave, not the way we would like them to behave. Moreover, the automobile does

Modern technology can be complex, but complexity by itself is neither good nor bad: it is confusion that is bad. Forget the complaints against complexity; instead, complain about confusion.

Usable designs are not necessarily enjoyable to use.

So we must design our machines on the assumption that people will make errors.

POET, The Psychology of Everyday Things

good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.

In the 1980s, in writing The Design of Everyday Things, I didn't take emotions into account. I addressed utility and usability, function and form, all in a logical, dispassionate way—even though I am infuriated by poorly designed objects. But now I've changed. Why? In part because of new scientific advances in our understanding of the brain and of how emotion and cognition are thoroughly intertwined.

complex system: good design requires consideration of the