Evening with Don Norman

I had the amazing opportunity to spend an evening with Don Norman, a world renowned human computer interaction researcher. His book "The Design of Everyday Things" is a must read for anyone interested in design and is the textbook for my course on most design courses.

This meetup was organized by the DesignUp group and the newly formed BITS Design School. I am deeply indebted to the efforts of these groups to bring this event to Bangalore.

The event was a Q&A type of event, where Don pretty much spent most of the 2 hours answering questions from the audience. I attempt to capture some of the interesting thoughts here.

• Humanity centered design is Human centered design ++. He talks about this deeply in his new book.
• In the education of designers, one should not stop with just the traditional design skills. Designers should be exposed to economics, politics, science, engineering, finance, etc.
• These should not be taught separate courses but rather be taught as projects which encompass all of these disciplines, so that designers understand the full picture.
• Designers are (unfortunately) low in the importance hierarchy. The Chief Design Officer is still someone whose opinion is not valued as much as the CFO or COO. Designers should widen the knowledge base and increase influence.
• AI should be treated as a collaborative assistant and not a replacement. Repetitive tasks can possibly be automated. Designers who master the art of using AI as a productive assistant will be invaluable.
• John is 88 and someone in the audience asked him the secret to his fitness. He replied with - Enough sleep (he treats sleep as sacred) ; eat healthy (he has turned vegetarian - not for any religious reasons but has realized that a lot of meat has the wrong type of fat and also is grown in a non-ethical way (and bad for the environment); and be fit - he walks as much as possible, climbs as many stair flights as possible (he recently climbed 11 flights!!) and also does some weights.
• Spoke deeply and passionately about the difference between architecture (designing buildings) and other forms of designs. How it is super hard to prototype something in real architecture. Spoke about planned obsolescene in automobiles and how it is now forever.

Had my fanboy moment with clicking a picture with Don, and also getting my copy of "The Design of Everyday Things" signed from him.