In his latest book, ‘Design for a Better World,’ Don Norman envisions a future where design embraces the well-being of humanity, encompassing diverse cultures, the environment, and all living beings. Here, he shares how, through his summit and awards program, he strives to inspire a new generation of designers and educators to make positive change. 

Don Norman’s career spans academia, government, and business, including time at UC San Diego, the US Department of Defense, Apple, and Hewlett-Packard. He co-founded user experience consultancy Nielsen Norman Group in 1998 and remains on its Board of Directors.

The thread connecting this varied career is an obsession with design. Here, he explains how, at 89, he remains passionate about helping designers create a better world for us all.

Tell us about your journey in design

It hasn’t been traditional. I started as an engineer, then accidentally became a psychologist and cognitive scientist, before working as an industry executive at Apple, where I started the User Experience Group.

Design is something I’ve been passionate about in all these roles. In 1988, I wrote a book called ‘The Design of Everyday Things’, about how people interact with technology. The principles of that book are mostly unchanged – they still apply today.

After my experience at Apple and starting the Nielsen Norman Group, I followed a client to Chicago in a company that didn’t work. I ended up teaching at Northwestern University, where I found two good friends who were working in emotion. That’s where I developed the idea for the book ‘Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Emotional Things’.

I have a deep training in technology, both as an academic and as a vice president of a technology company. And so my focus really is on taking technology and making it usable and effective for people. I know that aesthetics and emotion are also critical to good design, but these are things I’m bad at – I let others take care of those things.

How do you think designers can create more effective products for their users?

First, you have to go and watch what people are doing. I don’t believe in asking them, because people don’t often know why they’re doing what they’re doing. In fact, the more expertise they have, the less they understand about why they’re doing what they’re doing. That’s because by the time you’re an expert, you do things intuitively.

If you look at sports people – tennis players, for example, they are often bad coaches. They don’t know why they’re good. But all the best tennis players in the world have coaches. The coaches are not as good at the sport as the person they’re coaching, but they understand the principles, and they can see how the tiniest tweak to how a player holds a racket, for example, can make a big difference.

In the design industry, I play that role of coach. In fact, at a recent conference I was asked what I have designed. My reply? I haven’t designed anything of any great significance. But what I have designed is plenty of outstanding designers.

My focus now is to help designers move beyond what I wrote about in ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ and look at how, through much of the design we see today, we are destroying the environment. Products are being designed that are very difficult to repair. And they are being designed deliberately so that they must be replaced every couple of years. Even if they’re just digital products or services, we are destroying cultures. We’re addicting people in ways that are not good for them or for society.

It is time that we pay more attention to the way we source materials and the way we manufacture products. And this can only really be done at the design stage. That’s why I have written ‘Design for a Better World’. It’s also why one of my key goals now is to advance the development of humanity-centered design education and projects across the world.

How do you approach design in a way that will influence human behavior?

The goal of any design is to change human behavior. We’re trying to devise things that people will use and help them do things in a different way.

In many instances, people won’t even complain about the way they are doing something because they assume the current way is the only way it can be done. So, we use anthropological techniques to go out and watch people and see what they’re doing and understand why and how they do it. And what we can do is we can watch and say, maybe you don’t have to do it that way. Maybe there’s a whole different way, in fact. It’s our goal to help people do their jobs easier and to give them a better quality of life.

When I’m consulting, I have a rule: I do not solve the problem I’m asked to solve. Why? Well, because almost always that means I’m treating the symptoms and not the real issue. If you figure out what the real cause of these symptoms are, the symptoms disappear. But this often means making larger changes than people would think necessary.

How do you see GenAI shaping human behavior and cognition? What could be the positive and negatives of it? 

I think there are huge benefits. For example, I don’t do searches anymore. The whole notion of searching stems from a technology that got developed 30 years ago. It was about finding the right keyword that will find the right website that carries the answer to our problem. We got to be good at that. But today, that’s not what we do anymore. I don’t want to find a website that has my answer. I want to find the answer.

GenAI is already changing the way work gets done. I get a lot of designers thinking that it will replace them. However, they are looking at it wrong. If they can become an expert in the use of AI, they will find it won’t replace them – instead it will make them more creative and more productive. They won’t have to do any of the dull, boring work they have had to do in the past.

Not only will designers become more valued if they become experts at using these tools, but they will find that design can be used in much more powerful ways than it has been in the past.  

What are your thoughts on the ethical implications of AI and its impact on design? How can we ensure that AI is used responsibly and ethically in design? 

Most technical fields have ethical statements. Engineering societies all have strict ethical statements. Healthcare has strict ethical statements. But design doesn’t have this. There are no ethical rules. There’s no design society that I’m aware of that has a set of ethical statements.

This must change. That’s why I’m just starting an enterprise to establish a set of ethical guidelines for designers. This isn’t an easy thing to do. I once tried to organize an ethical group on a project, but the group gave up, declaring that it’s obvious what’s ethical and what’s not ethical. That’s not true at all. What’s obvious to me about what is ethical may for you be unethical. Different groups, people and societies with different needs have very different views about what’s right and wrong. And we must accommodate those different views.  

Can you tell us a bit more about the launch of the Don Norman Design Award (DNDA) and Summit? What do you hope to achieve with it?  

The idea began life as an award for people who do wonderful work. However, I recognized that at the point at which a designer has done wonderful work, getting an award doesn’t change anything.

That’s why I have chosen to recognize early career professionals – those that are just starting out – because that’s when encouragement and accolades can really make a difference.

The awards are there to showcase projects that profoundly impact society through humanity-centered design. So far it has been a great success. We had entries from 26 countries to the 2024 edition of the DNDA and over 200 people attended the Summit in San Diego.

The 2025 summit (DNDA25) will be held in Singapore from November 19-21, 2025. Details about the award process are now being developed. It is going to be even bigger and better than what we achieved in 2024.

Don’s latest book ‘Design for a Better World’ is now widely available. If you are interested in becoming an industrial sponsor of the upcoming DNDA Summit to help it continue to do its philanthropic work.