Turn Signals are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles (Paperback) - Common

by Donald A. Norman

From water faucets and airplane cockpits to the concept of ”real time” and the future of memory, this wide-ranging tour through technology provides a new understanding of how the gadgets that surround us affect our lives. Donald Norman explores the plight of humans living in a world ruled by a technology that seems to exist for its own sake, oblivious to the needs of the people who create it. Turn Signals is an intelligent, whimsical, curmudgeonly look at our love/hate relationship with machines, as well as a persuasive call for the humanization of modern design.

Genres: Design, Science, Psychology, Technology, Nonfiction, Computers

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Donald Arthur Norman is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego. He is best known for his books on design, especially The Design of Everyday Things. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the fields of design, usability engineering, and cognitive science, and has shaped the development of the field of cognitive systems engineering. He is a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, along with Jakob Nielsen. He is also an IDEO fellow and a member of the Board of Trustees of IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. He also holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. Norman is an active Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he spends two months a year teaching.
Much of Norman's work involves the advocacy of user-centered design. His books all have the underlying purpose of furthering the field of design, from doors to computers. Norman has taken a controversial stance in saying that the design research community has had little impact in the innovation of products, and that while academics can help in refining existing products, it is technologists that accomplish the breakthroughs. To this end, Norman named his website with the initialism JND (just-noticeable difference) to signify his endeavors to make a difference.

Reviews

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked The Psychology of Everyday Things so much that I picked this latest volume of Norman’s up when I saw it in the store. Unlike POET, which was one long thesis on psychology and design, Turn Signals… is a collection of essays on those topics. As such, it lacks the coherence of POET, but gains emphasis by focusing on specific topics covered only slightly in POET. First off, Norman relates how the title for POET has been changed to The Design of Everyday Things, because of a misconception in what the book was about and who the book was for, exactly the kind of common mistake that he was attempting to expose in the book. Then he moves on to topics like the design of airplane cockpits, the use of book jackets in libraries, using the refrigerator door as a message center, the electronic personal assistant, as well as the title essay on clues that we receive from other people versus clues we receive from machines. I like Norman, and his topic, and will be on the lookout for his other book, Things that Make Us Smart.

[Gronk · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard to judge harshly a book on design of technology written in 1992. There are some a few interesting essays but most held little appeal. The essays that held the least appeal were the ones not about design but instead focused on probability, brains, Hofstadter's law, time, etc. When Norman focused on discussion of design with examples it was interesting.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ragbag collection of essays on design, most of which have not aged as gracefully as his classic and still highly recommended The Design of Everyday Things, first published in 1988 and revised and expanded in 2013.

Rereading this collection in 2023, the essay that stood out for me was Coffee Cups in the Cockpit about the design of passenger plane cockpits. There are observations in it which are still quite relevant to the design of Human-AI teams -as are a raft of writings on automatic pilot and flight team design and aviation accident analysis. Norman writes well, argues forcefully and convincingly about what makes a design good or bad from a human point of view, includes compelling and brief case studies or examples, and has an excellent sense of humor.

Most of the first essays in this book (Design follies, The Home Magazine Kitchen, Refrigerator doors and message centers, and High technology gadgets, while enjoyable, read like addenda to The Design of Everyday Things, as he picks up on flaws in designing doors, vending machines, kitchen appliances and layout, virtual reality systems, and exercise machines, and points out what exactly makes them examples of poor design.

Sometimes his reflections on design lead him to muse on key problem in the design of artifacts which had not been invented in 1992 and which engage deeper issues in human-machine interaction. His first essay, Go to a sixth grade play deals with the distancing effect that some technology has. The essay deals with how focusing on the act of photographing or filming a trip or a school play often makes the photographer or filmer miss the immediate and usually far more important human experience in exchange for the possibility of recording impressions for later perusal. As he points out, his memories are usually not as rich and may be emotionally impoverished. I feel that many of his points in this essay are particularly pertinent to our age of selfies. Teddy is another prescient essay which reflects, in a style which at times sounds black-mirroresque, on the possible consequences, both positive and negative, of developing and relying on absorbing but socially distracting memory-enhancing devices. I recommend the reader intrigued by these ideas to read some of Sherry Turkle’s more detailed, relatively more recent, and psychologically deeper analysis, such as Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2011).

Several essays read like short columns on ideas that struck Norman’s fancy or curiosity, but are rather whimsical, shallow, debunk or set right a proverbial/popular saying. Such essays include How long is noon?, Real Time, Nature’s packaging, Evolution versus design, Hofstadter’s Law, One Chance in a million and Brain Power.

In short, most of the essays make for light reading, and are amusing if read in the proper spirit and if you can appreciate grappling with surprisingly contemporary issues from the vantage point of a time in which intelligent phones and social media were, at most, a gleam in a few eyes.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are two really good essays in this book: the one about design as writing, and the one about design failures. The rest of the book is of limited use.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Norman's stuff is about the anthropology of technology. We interact with physical environment, organizations, individuals -- and stuff. He gives insight into the stuff.

[Alain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beau geste!

[Alex Railean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and thought-provoking essays.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

written in 1992, it's somewhat dates, and that makes it even more interesting. some nice essays about what passes for high tech American daily life.