Abstract
Modern designs are more than ever before required to be understandable and usable by their intended audience. As machines get ever more complex, it becomes essential for designers to provide a user-centered design that focuses upon the needs and abilities of the user. This paper presents an analysis of cognitive artifacts—devices designed to maintain, display, or operate upon information in order to serve a representational function. An important design consideration is the human action cycle which means that artificial devices must support both execution and evaluation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Draper, S.W. (1986). Display managers as a basis for user-machine interaction. In D.A. Norman and S.W. Draper (Ed.),User centered system design. (pp. 339–352). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Norman, D.A. (1990).The design of everyday things. New York: Doubleday. [Originally published as Norman, D.A. (1988),The psychology of everyday things. New York: Basic Books.]
Norman, D.A. (1991). Cognitive artifacts. In J.M. Carroll (Ed.),Designing interaction: Psychology at the human-computer interface. (pp. 17–38). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Norman, D.A. (in preparation).Things that make us smart. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Norman, D.A. and Hutchins, E.L. (1988).Computation via direct manipulation. (Final Report: ONR Contract N00014-85-C-0133.) La Jolla, CA: University of California, San Diego, Institute for Cognitive Science
Williams, T.I. (1987).The history of invention: From stone axes to silicon chips. New York: Facts on file Publications. (Also published by London: Macdonald & Co.)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Norman, D.A. Design principles for cognitive artifacts. Research in Engineering Design 4, 43–50 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02032391
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02032391