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The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer is So Complex and Information Appliances are the Solution
 
 
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The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer is So Complex and Information Appliances are the Solution [Paperback]

Donald Norman (Author)
2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 316 pages
  • Publisher: MIT Press; New edition edition (30 Sep 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0262640414
  • ISBN-13: 978-0262640411
  • Product Dimensions: 22.7 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 492,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Donald A. Norman
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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

While Donald Norman acknowledges in The Invisible Computer that the personal computer allows for "flexibility and power," he also makes its limitations perfectly clear. Currently, computer users must navigate a sea of guidebooks, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and wizards to perform a task such as searching the Web or creating a spreadsheet. "The personal computer is perhaps the most frustrating technology ever," he writes. "It should be quiet, invisible, unobtrusive." His vision is that of the "information appliance", digital tools created to answer our specific needs, yet interconnected to allow communication between devices.

His solution? "Design the tool to fit so well that the tool becomes a part of the task." He proposes using the PC as the infrastructure for devices hidden in walls, in car dashboards, and held in the palm of the hand. A word of caution: some of Norman's zealotry leads to a certain creepiness (global positioning body implants) and goofiness (electric-power-generating plants in shoes). His message, though, is reasonably situated in the concept that the tools should bend to fit us and our goals: we sit down to write, not to word process; to balance bank accounts, not to fill in cells on a spreadsheet. In evenly measuring out the future of humanity's technological needs--and the limitations of the PC's current incarnation--Norman presents a formidable argument for a renaissance of the information appliance. --Jennifer Buckendorff

Review

"Don Norman's dramatic transformation from design critic to digitaldesigner has made his observations in The Invisible Computer even more insightful and inciteful." Michael Schrage , Research Associate, MIT Media Lab, and authorof Getting Real "Don Norman has established himself as high technology's leadingthinker on user interfaces and on why PCs are too complex."-- Wall Street Journal "... the bible of 'post-PC' thinking."-- Business Week
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
His basic argument in this book is that the computer industry has matured to the point where it can no longer just cater to the early-adopter technologists and must appeal to the masses to continue growth. Unfortunately, the industry doesn't know how to do this and continues to deliver technology for technology's sake, leading to fat computers and technology that aren't that useful or appealing to most people, and are beginning to exhaust the technologists too. He introduces some recent, but standard models of technology adoption for discussing the problems, customer-centered design in cross-disciplinary teams (marketing, engineering, and user experience) for designing products that transcend the problems (explicitly discussing Contextual Design a few times), and "information appliances," multitudes of small, task-focused technology products that will replace our big, cumbersome, general-purpose (but not great at any) PCs.

Norman's forte is definitely cognitive and experimental psychology in product design, and not being a technological or product development process visionary. I found very little new or interesting content in the book, and I don't think he articulated even some of the derived ideas very well. The whole book could have been condensed into a long magazine article. His prose is wordy and redundant, and the book is regrettfully lacking in many of the detailed case studies and examples he's used in previous books to elucidate his ideas. I want the idiosyncratic and outspoken psychologist professor back, such as he was in The Design of Everyday Things, or the powerful academic argument of Things That Make Us Smart. His short stint as a VP of HPs "Information Appliances" division, and his earlier work at Apple, was not enough to give him a deep understanding or insight into the problems of the current technology-product market.

He does make some good book recommendations, however, and I'll add my favorite articulation of the problem, that I think articulate the problem and potential solutions much better:

C. M. Christensen, _The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail_, 1997. G. A. Moore, _Crossing The Chasm: Marketingand Selling High-Tech Goods to Mainstream Customers_, 1991. T. K. Landauer, _The Trouble With Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity_, 1995.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
The book is persuasive in its central argument that today's PC is overgrown, difficult to use, and suffers from its fundamental architecture as a multipurpose device. The point is made adequately in the introduction and first chapter, however, and the rest of the meat of he book just belabors the point, often repeating the same points in the exact same words.

The appendix on examples of information appliances is fun, though, as he finally gets to what he thinks will be the next generation of devices to replace the PC.

Also, I sometimes found his arguments about market forces and the business model of the technology industry simplistic, even naive. I found it hard to believe at times that he worked at Apple all those years.

Still, I enjoyed skimming it.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Donald Norman seems to have taken up a position like that of Eric S. Raymond of Open Source, but in usability. This is a business-argument pitch for information appliances. It draws very heavily in its early chapters from the book "Inside the Tornado", I think by Moore.Inside the Tornado was a book adopted as Marketing Bible by my previous employer, an entrepreneurial venture in the digital imaging industry that may yet sink, but not because of the book. Inside the Tornado is right, but if you've absorbed it, you'll be irritated with the first half of this book.For people who read and appreciated his earlier books and are looking for interesting theoretical or experimental stuff on or near the topic of cognitive science will be disappointed. Don't buy this book for that reason.If you have only a weak grasp of information appliances, what they are, and why they're good, you will want to read this book.I wish someone else wrote this book, though.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The item was never delivered
I've made multiple book orders from different shops, and AwesomeBooks was the ONLY ONE that sent me this message 4 months after i made the purchase:

The book was... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Hugo Castanho
Incredibly boring but got me through my course
In common with both of his that books I've had to read as part of my multimedia technology course The invisible Computer is a long winded and repetative account of how the world of... Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2000 by Exmonkey
Suitfeed
Yeah, right. Edison didn't know what he was doing because he wasn't "customer centered" enough to make flat records. Read more
Published on 17 Feb 1999
Great topic, weak execution
I have greatly enjoyed and valued some of the author's previous work and ordered multiple copies of "The Invisible Computer" as soon as I heard about it in order to... Read more
Published on 10 Feb 1999
Best for its explanation of infrastructure goods
The historical case studies are fascinating -- but the best chapter, in my opinion, has little to do with "information appliances" and much to do with the nature of... Read more
Published on 28 Jan 1999
Perhaps the weakest book by an excellent author
Much of what Norman says in "The Invisible Computer" needs to be said, and based on his earlier work, I expected it to be said clearly. Read more
Published on 2 Dec 1998
Valuable insights but a bit verbose
While I fully agree with the thrust of Don Norman's book and find it entertaining and easy to follow, I also think it is somewhat verbose - but perhaps I am already too familar... Read more
Published on 23 Nov 1998
At last! A breath of sanity in the PC world
You know how it is; you know there's something wrong and you can articulate some of the problems but the whole thing never adds up to a really convincing proposition; you've... Read more
Published on 3 Nov 1998
Well-argued perspectives on the future of PC design
Donald Norman offers a no-holds-barred attack on the present state of personal computer design and marketing. Read more
Published on 1 Nov 1998
If you want to take a step back from using PCs.......
A very good book, in a very easy to read style. The author makes a number of good points about why PCs are such pigs to use. Read more
Published on 22 Oct 1998
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