Don Norman: The three ways that good design makes you happy

http://www.ted.com In this talk from 2003, design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at design that makes people happy. He names the three emotional cues that a well-designed product must hit to succeed.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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Howto & Style

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[GooseberryFiddich]

A fine talk. His style may not be to everyone's taste but he is himself and that makes him so pleasurable to listen to. So enthusiastic about his subject that i carried on lstening to him and started looking at more of his talks. I like you Don Norman.

[peterbriers]

Hehe, I think you missed his point.

[essellar]

@25soraya02 That's kind of the point he's making here -- that what he's said in the past needed to be said, but that there is also room for aesthetics that go beyond the merely practical. Things that serve a particular function need to be first and foremost functional and usable, but they can also be beautiful while sacrificing nothing. And there is room in the world as well for things whose only function is beauty.

[BenHume55rr]

@achilleask Well... Sure.. the teapot is one example.. but this guy is really just pointing out a cool teapot.. why doesn't he design something practical and useful instead of showing us stuff we will see on some blog tomorrow

[BenHume55rr]

This guy is more interested in the superficial beauty of design then the internal beauty of design, which I believe to be quite foolish

[BenHume55rr]

@kasanemo I agree, I think his fascination with material bobbles is just plain pathetic. He reminds me of my deeply unhappy father who only keeps the appearance of happiness afloat by buying whatever "pretty" (and usually ridiculously expensive) item he fancies. No matter how useless and completely unnecessary the item is. Honestly his explanation is lacking a lot.

[BenHume55rr]

@fionamonne He may have worked really hard to buy a gold plated juicer, good for him, but in all reality his fascination with material things make him appear a fairly sad and boring individual (to me)

[BenHume55rr]

I honestly think this guy has a very narrow concept of beauty. The majority of what he says just reflects that he has a lot of money and is trying to buy fun and happiness... a gold plated juicer he doesn't even use... come on people.

[25soraya02]

I'm a bit confused, in one of his articles he discusses the importance of good conceptual models referring to affordances, constraints and mappings, but in his other articles does he also mention aesthetics or does he simple focus on practicality?

[Stephenson24]

I love Normans books :)

[bigboui80]

@GooseberryFiddich - I would definitely have to agree. I started watching TEDtalks videos in my Physics class and now I got hooked. Don Norman is very interesting to listen to. His audience-centered approach in speaking makes for an interesting symposium. I also ended up watching quite a few of his other videos.

[eugeo1234]

0:56 is "produced by Alessi", not "produced by a messy" (about the juicer)