"An erudite and insightful exploration of a revolution in human thinking that most people have probably never considered." -- Publishers Weekly "If you''ve ever been frustrated by an ATM interface, the self-checkout station, your Starbucks app, or even your forgotten your password, you need this book. User Friendly tells the untold stories of the products and experiences that comprise everyday life, showing how user experience design has moved from the fringes to the center of modern life." -- LIZ DANAZICO , Vice President of Design for NPR "Happy, shiny, smiley gadgets! They''re everywhere, and they''re watching us. User-friendliness is the cognitive lubricant that makes us love the stuff we use. And yet we rarely wonder how that love was crafted. This fascinating book unveils how--and why--everyday products try so hard to be likeable and friction free." -- ELLEN LUPTON , author of Beautiful Users: Designing for People and curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum "This book is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand why business and society has turned to design in pursuit of growth and change.
Simply put, empathy is good business in today''s world. The case for placing design at the center of human enterprise is stronger than ever, thanks to this insightful work." -- TIM BROWN , Chair of IDEO and author of Change by Design " User Friendly starts with the fascinating arc of design in the industrial age, when fortunes could be made by looking more deeply at how we live. But this book brings those insights into the touchscreen age, in which our devices and interfaces sometimes seem to know us better than we know ourselves. Anyone who cares about the fraught but increasingly urgent role that design plays in our lives owes it to themselves to read this hugely compelling book." -- SCOTT DADICH , creator of Abstract: The Art of Design and co-founder of Godfrey Dadich Partners "What happens when the world''s most important design material is human behavior? User Friendly weaves a stirring and unexpected story of how the machine age gave way to the iPhone era. Monolithic tools of war became chipper assistants, but at a price. Passionate and poised, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant show us how friendliness took command, mapping a new root structure for the simmering chaos of the recent internet.
Put down your phone and read this book." -- ALEXIS MADRIGAL , author of Powering the Dream "There are few principles as central to the experience of modern life than that of ''user friendliness'', and understanding the history of this deceptively momentous concept is crucial to understanding where we are, and where we''re heading next. In this epic work, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant offer us compulsively readable successor to The Design of Everyday Things. They have crafted a definitive narrative that is as well-designed as the products that grace its pages. -- BRIAN MERCHANT , author of The One Device "You could say that a primary goal of digital-era design is to eliminate the user manual: To make and sell us things that ''just work.'' But this leaves us, for better and worse, uncertain how things work--or why they''ve been made to work the way they do. User Friendly gives us answers, clearly and specifically. It''s the missing manual to the designed world, and that''s just what we need.
" -- ROB WALKER , author of The Art of Noticing "Rarely do I dog-ear pages or underline paragraphs as much as I did with this book. Engrossing an rich with rarely-told stories and interviews, User Friendly gives critical insights to make us better, smarter consumers of design and user-friendly experiences. And it shows us how those ideas will shape the world to come. It is a must read for anyone who cares about design and the challenges it has to meet in the coming decades." -- JOE GEBBIA , co-founder of Airbnb.