The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
Alan Cooper
Discover the power of technology through "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum." Author Alan Cooper sheds light on the common confusion surrounding electronics, computer chips, and other technologies found in everyday life. Cooper offers a new perspective on common sense interactions and offers insight into how technology can be designed to work for us, not the other way around.
Publish Date
2004-02-24T00:00:00.000Z
2004-02-24T00:00:00.000Z
first published in 1999
Goodreads Rating
3.95
ISBN
9780672326141
Recommendations
2
Recommendations
2012-10-22T00:00:00.000Z
Q: One of the books you mention on your blog is Alan Cooper’s The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. When I read the book, I must admit to being a little bit offended by his description of software engineers as loving complexity. A: But they totally do! The book is completely correct! That’s one of my lessons to my fellow programmers: Stop trying to be a great programmer, and focus on trying to be a great human being. How do you build things that human beings can actually use. I’m not saying you have to fall in love with your fellow human beings—they’re a lot harder to love and are a lot more erratic than you’d like. But you have to appreciate that, if you want people to use your stuff, you have to understand human factors. You have to appreciate that you need to ask: What’s the prior art on this? How are other people doing this, from a design perspective? That's absolutely critical to being a great programmer. – source