User friendly : how the hidden rules of design are changing the way we live, work, and play

***Picked as a book of the year by Fortune magazine***'A tour de force, an engrossing fusion of scholarly research, professional experience and revelations from intrepid firsthand reporting' -- New York TimesUSER FRIENDLY is a must-read for anyone who loves well-designed products-and for the innovators aspiring to make them. It seems like magic when some new gadget seems to know what we want before we know ourselves.

But why does some design feel intrinsically good, and why do some designs last forever, while others disappear?

User Friendly guides readers through the hidden rules governing how design shapes our behaviour, told through fascinating stories such as what the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island reveals about the logic of the smartphone; how the pressures of the Great Depression and World War II created our faith in social progress through better product design; and how a failed vision for Disney World yielded a new paradigm for designed experience.