From best-selling author Donald A. Norman, the long-awaited sequel to The Design of Everyday Things : a critical look at the new dawn of "smart" technology, from smooth-talking GPS units to cantankerous refrigerators. Donald A. Norman, a popular design consultant to car manufacturers, computer companies, and other industrial and design outfits, has seen the future and is worried. In this long-awaited follow-up to The Design of Everyday Things , he points out what's going wrong with the wave of products just coming on the market and some that are on drawing boards everywhere--from "smart" cars and homes that seek to anticipate a user's every need, to the latest automatic navigational systems. Norman builds on this critique to offer a consumer-oriented theory of natural human-machine interaction that can be put into practice by the engineers and industrial designers of tomorrow's thinking machines. This is a consumer-oriented look at the perils and promise of the smart objects of the future, and a cautionary tale for designers of these objects--many of which are already in use or development.

Don Norman博士的背景是工程學和社會科學，在學術界和工業界都具有極高的榮譽。他是美國西北大學計算機科學係的教授，以及加州大學名譽教授。Norman博士是Nielsen Norman Group（幫助企業設計製造以人為中心的産品和服務的商務谘詢公司）的發起人之一。1999年，Upside雜誌並提名他為世界100精英之一。Norman博士齣版瞭大量的書籍和研究報告。他是13本書的作者或作者之一，作品被翻譯成12種語言。其中包括最有名的《日常事物的設計》和《情感化設計》。