The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex, and Information Appliances Are the Solution

Author: Donald A. Norman List Price: $16.95 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 0262640414 Publisher: MIT Press (20 August, 1999) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 77,941 Average Customer Rating: 3.17 out of 5

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Customer Reviews

Throughout the work Norman draws upon "Crossing the Chasm"
and "Inside the Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon
Valley's Cutting Edge" [both by Geoffrey Moore]. Also
heavily emphasized are the ideas put forth by "The

Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms
to Fail." All of these books are interesting--but I wanted
something from Norman himself.

Chapter 7, "Being Analog", was more in line with what I had
come to expect from Norman. He ends this chapter with this:
"Alas, most of today's machines, especially the computer,
force people to use them on their own terms, terms that are
antithetical to the way people work and think. The result is
frustration, an increase in the rate of error (usually
blamed on the user--human error--instead of on faulty
design), and a general turning away from technology. Will
the interaction between people and machines be done
correctly in the future? Might schools of computer science
start teaching the human-centered approach that is necessary
to reverse the trend? I don't see why not." That's what I'm
looking for! If only the rest of the book had followed that
passion.

Instead focusing on human factors and man-machine

interface issues, Norman wanders discussing substitutable
goods vs. nonsubstitutable goods, a rehash of why software
is hard to write (and the mythical man month), and even some
embarrassing admissions now that he'd spent some time outside
academia and worked a bit in industry: "Time, or rather the
lack of it, I was starting to learn, is one of the greatest
barriers to quality". As my young nieces would say to me,
"duh!"

Finally, although written in the late 1990's with the

paperback edition published in 1998, I found the text to
already be a bit dated. You don't realize how quickly the
computer industry moves until you find a book frozen in time
like this one.

My recommendation is to read Norman's other works and the
works he recommends here (Crossing the Chasm, Inside the
Tornado, and Innovator's Dilemma). Finally, I recommend
"Machine Beauty" by David Gelernter. It provides more
passion and keener insights than this work--and is generally
more fun to read!

An example is the way children interact with computers compared to senior citizens. When a child grows up with something is becomes natural. Most children who have access to a computer at an early stage find it as natural as using a video/DVD player, television or CD player. If the technology is introduced at an early stage it become part of the natural language of the child. Normal disagrees with this, and I think although he is a well researched observer that this is one failing of the book.

It wasn't until I reached the last quarter of the book that I could start to agree with his ideas and see the point he was trying to make. That is that some devices work as an appliance. The examples of the TiVo (which we don't have here in Australia) seem best to fit the example. They do one thing, and do it well. Network Computers are the other example, where the complexity of the device is hidden from the user (although he still feels uncomfortable with NC's as they are still "computers".)

Norman's style of writing made me think I had skipped back a few pages every now and then as he often will repeat himself in greater detail over points he thinks are important.

If you're a technologist you should read it. But don't take it as gospel. Although Normal is correct in some of his point, you need to use your own experience and environment to understand the points he is trying to make, rather than accepting them carte blanch.

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