The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity View Larger Image | Alan Cooper
Sams, Paperback, 2nd edition, Published February 2004, 255 pages, ISBN 0672326140 | List Price: $18.95
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Imagine, at a terrifyingly aggressive rate, everything you regularly use
is being equipped with computer technology. Think about your phone, cameras,
cars - everything - being automated and programmed by people who in their
rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, have abdicated their
responsibility to make these products easy to use.
The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances,
business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech
industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge,
leading to products and processes that waste money, squander customer loyalty,
and erode competitive advantage. Business executives have let the inmates
run the asylum!
In his book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum Alan Cooper calls
for revolution - we need technology to work in the same way average people
think - we need to restore the sanity. He offers a provocative, insightful
and entertaining explanation of how talented people continuously design
bad software-based products. More importantly, he uses his own work with
companies big and small to show how to harness those talents to create
products that will both thrill their users and grow the bottom line.
Table of Contents
Foreword.
I. COMPUTER OBLITERACY.
1. Riddles for the Information Age.
What Do You Get When You Cross a Computer
with an Airplane? What Do You Get When You Cross a Computer with a Camera?
What Do You Get When You Cross a Computer with an Alarm Clock? What Do
You Get When You Cross a Computer with a Car? What Do You Get When You
Cross a Computer with a Bank? Computers Make It Easy to Get into Trouble.
Commercial Software Suffers, Too. What Do You Get When You Cross a Computer
with a Warship? Techno-Rage. An Industry in Denial. The Origins of This
Book.
2. Cognitive Friction.
Behavior Unconnected to Physical Forces.
Design Is a Big Word. The Relationship Between Programmers and Designers.
Most Software Is Designed by Accident. "Interaction" Versus "Interface"
Design. Why Software-Based Products Are Different. The Dancing Bear. The
Cost of Features. Apologists and Survivors. How We React to Cognitive Friction.
The Democratization of Consumer Power. Blaming the User. Software Apartheid.
II. IT COSTS YOU BIG TIME.
3. Wasting Money.
Deadline Management. What Does "Done"
Look Like? Parkinson's Law. The Product That Never Ships. Shipping Late
Doesn't Hurt. Feature-List Bargaining. Programmers Are in Control. Features
Are Not Necessarily Good. Iteration and the Myth of the Unpredictable Market.
The Hidden Costs of Bad Software. The Only Thing More Expensive Than Writing
Software Is Writing Bad Software. Opportunity Cost. The Cost of Prototyping.
4. The Dancing Bear.
If It Were a Problem, Wouldn't It Have
Been Solved by Now? Consumer Electronics Victim. How Email Programs Fail.
How Scheduling Programs Fail. How Calendar Software Fails. Mass Web Hysteria.
What's Wrong with Software? Software Forgets. Software Is Lazy. Software
Is Parsimonious with Information. Software Is Inflexible. Software Blames
Users. Software Won't Take Responsibility.
5. Customer Disloyalty.
Desirability. A Comparison. Time to Market.
III. EATING SOUP WITH A FORK.
6. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum.
Driving from the Backseat. Hatching a
Catastrophe. Computers Versus Humans. Teaching Dogs to Be Cats.
7. Homo Logicus.
The Jetway Test. The Psychology of Computer
Programmers. Programmers Trade Simplicity for Control. Programmers Exchange
Success for Understanding. Programmers Focus on What Is Possible to the
Exclusion of What Is Probable. Programmers Act Like Jocks.
8. An Obsolete Culture.
The Culture of Programming. Reusing Code.
The Common Culture. Programming Culture at Microsoft. Cultural Isolation.
Skin in the Game. Scarcity Thinking. The Process Is Dehumanizing, Not the
Technology.
IV. INTERACTION DESIGN IS GOOD BUSINESS.
9. Designing for Pleasure.
Personas. Design for Just One Person.
The Roll-Aboard Suitcase and Sticky Notes. The Elastic User. Be Specific.
Hypothetical. Precision, Not Accuracy. A Realistic Look at Skill Levels.
Personas End Feature Debates. Both Designers and Programmers Need Personas.
It's a User Persona, Not a Buyer Persona. The Cast of Characters. Primary
Personas. Case Study: Sony Trans Com's P@ssport. The Conventional Solution.
Personas. Designing for Clevis.
10. Designing for Power.
Goals Are the Reason Why We Perform Tasks.
Tasks Are Not Goals. Programmers Do Task-Directed Design. Goal-Directed
Design. Goal-Directed Television News. Goal-Directed Classroom Management.
Personal and Practical Goals. The Principle of Commensurate Effort. Personal
Goals. Corporate Goals. Practical Goals. False Goals. Computers Are Human,
Too. Designing for Politeness. What Is Polite? What Makes Software Polite?
Polite Software Is Interested in Me. Polite Software Is Deferential to
Me. Polite Software Is Forthcoming. Polite Software Has Common Sense. Polite
Software Anticipates My Needs. Polite Software Is Responsive. Polite Software
Is Taciturn About Its Personal Problems. Polite Software Is Well Informed.
Polite Software Is Perceptive. Polite Software Is Self-Confident. Polite
Software Stays Focused. Polite Software Is Fudgable. Polite Software Gives
Instant Gratification. Polite Software Is Trustworthy. Case Study: Elemental
Drumbeat. The Investigation. Who Serves Whom. The Design. Pushback. Other
Issues.
11. Designing for People.
Scenarios. Daily-Use Scenarios. Necessary-Use
Scenarios. Edge-Case Scenario. Inflecting the Interface. Perpetual Intermediates.
"Pretend It's Magic". Vocabulary. Breaking Through with Language. Reality
Bats Last. Case Study: Logitech ScanMan. Malcolm, the Web-Warrior. Chad
Marchetti, Boy. Magnum, DPI. Playing "Pretend It's Magic". World-Class
Cropping. World-Class Image Resize. World-Class Image Reorient. World-Class
Results. Bridging Hardware and Software. Less Is More.
V. GETTING BACK INTO THE DRIVER'S SEAT.
12. Desperately Seeking Usability.
The Timing. User Testing. User Testing
Before Programming. Fitting Usability Testing into the Process. Multidisciplinary
Teams. Programmers Designing. How Do You Know? Style Guides. Conflict of
Interest. Focus Groups. Visual Design. Industrial Design. Cool New Technology.
Iteration.
13. A Managed Process.
Who Really Has the Most Influence? The
Customer-Driven Death Spiral. Conceptual Integrity Is a Core Competence.
A Faustian Bargain. Taking a Longer View. Taking Responsibility. Taking
Time. Taking Control. Finding Bedrock. Knowing Where to Cut. Making Movies.
The Deal. Document Design to Get It Built. Design Affects the Code. Design
Documents Benefit Programmers. Design Documents Benefit Marketing. Design
Documents Help Documenters and Tech Support. Design Documents Help Managers.
Design Documents Benefit the Whole Company. Who Owns Product Quality? Creating
a Design-Friendly Process. Where Interaction Designers Come From. Building
Design Teams.
14. Power and Pleasure.
An Example of a Well-Run Project. A Companywide
Awareness of Design. Benefits of Change. Let Them Eat Cake. Changing the
Process.
Index.
About the Author
Alan Cooper is a software author and visionary whose industry credits
include creating the visual programming interface for Microsoft's Visual
Basic. His one-man crusade for better design in the '90s has evolved into
the Cooper Interactive Design firm, which he founded in 1992. As an industry
leader, he is frequently speaking at computer conferences such as VBITS
as well as meeting with industry leaders to provide guidance and direction.
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