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Add to SafariWhen comparing The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman vs Design for hackers, the Slant community recommends The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman for most people. In the question“What are the best books on web design?” The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman is ranked 3rd while Design for hackers is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman is:
Whatever that's being designed, for whatever purpose, it always has the same goal of being used by someone. This book is focused on that interaction and on why users make mistakes. These principles still apply directly to web design, when design leads users to make mistakes, it will ultimately drive users away.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Focused on the user
Whatever that's being designed, for whatever purpose, it always has the same goal of being used by someone. This book is focused on that interaction and on why users make mistakes. These principles still apply directly to web design, when design leads users to make mistakes, it will ultimately drive users away.
Pro Cross discipline principles
This book isn't focused on recent trends or properties specific to a certain field, and thus applies to all design. It provides a broad view and allows focusing on the fundamental goals of the user experience, rather than being limited in scope.
Pro For programmers
The book is specifically written for developers who aren't sure how to approach design problems.
Cons
Con Not specifically for web design
This book challenges the reader to think about the design of all objects, and their user-friendliness/usability. It is not specifically targeted towards web designers, but will help web designers think in a way that benefits users.
Con Disjointed and hard to follow
Rather than providing proper context, and author frequently tries to tie points together by using backwards and forwards references ("As you've seen in chapter ___,").
Though there is a lot of interesting points throughout the book, nothing ties together so it can be hard to make sense of.
Con Too philosophical at times
The author goes into detail about things that would have been far better explained using practical examples.
For example, a rant on why Comic Sans is bad but no discussion on font selection for the context.
