Top all-time · #750
Don Norman
Personal blog · jnd.orgdesignwriting
Don Norman's personal blog at jnd.org covers design and writing. Since 2007, 87 different Hacker News readers have linked it 105 times, most often “Simplicity Is Highly Overrated”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-06-04, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 10 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Don Norman's essays and book pages on affordances, human error, automation and activity-centred design, and often recommend 'The Design of Everyday Things'.
- Recommended for · 10 comments
- Called 'great', 'thoughtful', 'pretty cogent' and 'must-read'; one says a book changed how they see doors.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Simplicity Is Highly Overrated6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2008-07-28
- Why is 37signals so arrogant?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2008-03-08
- Simplicity is overrated... perception rules2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-03-06
- When Security Gets In The Way2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-08-05
- Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-10-26
- Error Messages Are Evil2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-05-12
- Technology First, Needs Last (2009)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-11-28
- Technology First, Needs Last2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-12-10
- /dn.mss/affordances_and.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-09-05
- Toilet Paper Algorithms: I didn't know you had to be a computer scientist to use toilet paper.2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-07-03
What Hacker News says?
"affordances", amiright? https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html
Comment linking /dn.mss/affordances_and.html
on “Chatbots were the next big thing: what happened?”Submitted Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015) as a story · 535 points
HN discussionDon Norman has written on this. Here is his preamble to In Defense of Cheating : "No, I am not in favor of deception, trickery, fraud, or swindle. What I wish to change are the curriculum and examination practices of our school systems that insist on unaided work, arbitrary learning of irrelevant and uninteresting facts. I'd like to move them toward an emphasis on understanding, on knowing how to get to an answer ra…
Comment linking /dn.mss/in_defense_of_cheating.html
on “Why I will never pursue cheating again”Submitted Simplicity Is Highly Overrated as a story · 120 points
HN discussion> It's weird to me that people complain over "old and ugly" interfaces. You might be interested in checking out the work of Donald Norman. He makes a great case that attractive things work better. Old isn't necessarily a problem, but ugly is. https://jnd.org/emotion_design_attractive_things_work_better...
Comment linking /emotion_design_attractive_things_work_better/
on “LibreOffice: The Next Five Years”Submitted Floorplan Light Switches as a story · 111 points
HN discussionThe Design of Everyday Things [0], by Don Norman (I think that it's at its 3rd edition, but I preferred the second). Once I read that book, I could never look at a door the same way. Just this morning, I encountered a "Norman Door." [0] https://jnd.org/the-design-of-everyday-things-revised-and-ex...
Comment linking /the-design-of-everyday-things-revised-and-expanded-edition/
on “Ask HN: What book changed your life?”Submitted Why is 37signals so arrogant? as a story · 59 points
HN discussion"The power of the unaided mind is greatly exaggerated. It is 'things' that make us smart, the cognitive artifacts that allow human beings to overcome the limitations of human memory and conscious reasoning." - Donald A. Norman, Things That Make Us Smart https://jnd.org/things_that_make_us_smart_forbes_article/
Comment linking /things_that_make_us_smart_forbes_article/
on “I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things”Submitted Community-based, human-centered design as a story · 45 points
HN discussion> Design is communication. I assume it’s unintentional, but the rest of your comment twists the original meaning of the maxim[0]. In my experience, “design is communication” generally means a slightly less obvious thing: how through the medium of your design you communicate with the end user. Your points about the importance of communication between designers are valid, but by using that maxim you make it sound like…
Comment linking /design_as_communication/
on “Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App”Submitted Gestural interfaces: A step backwards in usability as a story · 43 points
HN discussion(American) Academia is a complicated matter, so I’ll elide commenting on that. For a thoughtful counterpoint to the necessity argument, see: https://jnd.org/technology_first_needs_last/ (previously discussed on HN)
Comment linking /technology_first_needs_last/
on “My story as a self-taught AI researcher”Submitted Apple's Products Are Getting Harder to Use as a story · 42 points
HN discussionGood call, I was also going to mention this until I saw your comment. It appears there are many UK city sites that are trying to implement these principles. Given that the principles include accessibility guidelines [0] and transparency of intent [1], I'd prefer to see more city sites designed this way. (That is if the sites in question faithfully implement the design principles) Regarding the site OP linked, even i…
Comment linking /dn.mss/emotion_design_at.html
on “Manchester City Council”Submitted Technology First, Needs Last (2009) as a story · 41 points
HN discussionFrom the preface of the 2013 edition of the book: http://www.jnd.org/books/design-of-everyday-things-revised.h... "When I started, I assumed that the basic principles were still true, so all I needed to do was update the examples. But in the end, I rewrote everything." "When I wrote the original book I was an academic researcher. Today, I have been an industry executive (Apple, HP, and some startups), a consultant t…
Comment linking /books/design-of-everyday-things-revised.html
on “New Course: The Design of Everyday Things”Submitted Simplicity Is Not the Answer as a story · 33 points
HN discussionDon Norman has has found that attractive things work better[1]. While it’s not exactly the same, I think giving your employee some freedom to choose the gear they use is probably money well spent. [1]: https://jnd.org/emotion_design_attractive_things_work_better...
Comment linking /emotion_design_attractive_things_work_better/
on “How to set junior employees up for success in remote”Submitted Simplicity Is Not the Answer as a story · 30 points
HN discussionI recommend reading: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered_design_considered_h... http://pragprog.com/book/lmuse/designed-for-use
Comment linking /dn.mss/human-centered_design_considered_harmful.html
on “How Steve Jobs handles trolls (WWDC 1997)”Submitted Preface to the new edition of The Design of Everyday Things as a story · 16 points
HN discussionI feel the exact same way. I've been a Mac user for over ten years largely because of OS X, but I've been disappointed in Apple's direction for the past few years, and yesterday's MacBook Pro announcement was the last straw for me. Linux is a wonderful server OS, and in fact I do most of my development inside of a VirtualBox VM running Debian, but in order for me to move to a full Linux workflow, I need to use some…
Comment linking /dn.mss/apples_products_are.html
on “The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft”Submitted Gesture-Based Touch Interfaces: A Step Backwards in Usability as a story · 13 points
HN discussionIn 2007 Donald Norman wrote a piece on command-line interfaces that's pretty cogent: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/ui_breakthroughcomma.html Text UI is a great way to hide complexity but difficult to teach and form habits around. The learning curve is steep and probably something we need to invest more in because "have you read the man page" isn't gonna cut it for most.
Comment linking /dn.mss/ui_breakthroughcomma.html
on “The future of UI is text”Submitted The Psychology of Waiting Lines as a story · 9 points
HN discussionI find that personas are nearly useless for this kind of design discussion. Personas are an attempt to homogenize some group of people into a single pseudo-person that has specific attributes. When the lines between personas are hard to draw or there are so many lines that you wind up with lots of personas, you can find yourself spending lots of time managing personas without a ton of direction or solving anyone's p…
Comment linking /dn.mss/hcd_harmful_a_clarification.html
on “Something is wrong with this picture.”Submitted We are analog beings trapped in a digital world, we did it to ourselves. as a story · 8 points
HN discussionI concur though per my earlier post I do feel "desktop stagnation" is inevitable and we're already there. You were channeling Don Norman https://jnd.org/ in the best of ways.
Comment linking /
on “Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever? [video]”Submitted Technology First, Needs Last as a story · 6 points
HN discussion
