NORMAN 1 The Design of Everyday Things

When reading Norman books I could tell the way he discusses the problems we all have with the results of bad design in everyday life - doors which open the wrong way; telephone calls you can't put on hold; washing machines with spaceship control panels. He really did clarify the rules of good design as he goes along. These turn out to be visibility, good conceptual model, feedback, and natural mapping.
What I understood from this is that the controls should be visually obvious, they should feel part of a natural process,they should tell you that an action has been performed, and they should reveal the connection between action and results. Every point of his argument is illustrated with practical examples and anecdotes drawn from the problems of normal life.
He is also good at explaining the function and limitations of memory, and gives a clear account of one concept on which he relies heavily - mapping. This is the ability of good designers to arrange their controls, buttons, and switches in a way which corresponds to something we already know and have mentally internalised. He also offers interesting analyses of mistakes, breakdowns, and disasters - relating them to issues of both design and the relationship of humans to machines.
He gave a lot of example for example taking the wrong turn when driving, to the disastrous consequences of aircraft engine and nuclear reactor failure.