Happy New Year with a great book tip from my friends: The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.

Having studied design on college, I have no idea how any of my teachers haven’t recommended this before.

The book deconstructs the relationship between user and object, making easier to see how some interaction errors aren’t the user’s fault, but a design problem. Norman discusses good and bad design from a lot of perspectives: design, behavioral psychology, engineering, ergonomics… and proposes some very useful design principles.

All of these, although exemplified by “Everyday Things”, can be applied to game design. When you design a game system, for example, you have to think of how the player will understand what he/she needs to do, how it will be done and the feedbacks to show it was done correctly or not.

With a simple language and rich examples, this book is a must for any person that works with any kind of design, even if you are a programmer or artist. It will surely make you think better while creating things humans will use and play.