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Computer scientists have so far worked on developing powerful programming languages that make it possible to solve the technical problems of computation. Little effort has gone toward devising the languages of interaction.

— Donald Norman The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

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Computers

More quotes by Donald Norman

If people keep buying poorly designed products, manufacturers and designers will think they are doing the right thing and continue as usual.

The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

When a device as simple as a door has to come with an instruction manual—even a one-word manual—then it is a failure, poorly designed.

The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

Average a left-hander with a right-hander and what do you get?

The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right.

Innocence lost is not easily regained. The designer simply cannot predict the problems people will have, the misinterpretations that will arise, and the errors that will get made.

The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

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Software engineering is the part of computer science which is too difficult for the computer scientist.

Friedrich Bauer Bauer (1971)

A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.

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Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Donald Norman (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.