Don Norman is co-founder and board member of Nielsen Norman Group. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has been awarded three honorary degrees. Don was a founding director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego.
A powerful myth has arisen upon the land: That designers possess some mystical, creative thought process that places them above all others in their skills at creative, groundbreaking thought.
Web users are highly goal-driven, and ads that interfere with their goals will be ignored. To succeed, ads must work with the medium, as well as with the user's aims and mindset.
Designers of DVDs have failed to profit from the lessons of previous media. DVD menu structures are baroque, less usable, less pleasurable, less effective. It is time to take DVD design as seriously as we do web design. The field needs discipline, attention, to the User Experience, and standardization of control and display formats.
