The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
by Alan Cooper
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“Products fail by trying to be all things to all people. | 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 →“Products fail by trying to be all things to all people. | 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 →Recommended by 4 notable people, including Brian Armstrong and Andrew Chen
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Recommended by 6 sources and appears in Most Recommended Books, Programming, and Technology.
Technology, isn't only the way of the future, but also the way of today. With electronics, computer chips, transmitters, and so on finding their into the most common of household and office environments, most people find that they really don't know very much about the technological advances they use. They need their phones, cameras, computers, and c...
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Why recommended
Recommended by 6 sources and appears in Most Recommended Books, Programming, and Technology.
Recommended by notable people
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
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Brian Armstrong
“Products fail by trying to be all things to all people. | 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.”
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The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
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