Alan Cooper Quotes

If we want users to like our software we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful.

No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.

Design principle: Take things away until the design breaks, then put that last thing back in.

Define what the product will do before you design how the product will do it.

Ironically, the thing that will likely make the least improvement in the ease of use of software-based products is new technology. There is little difference technically between a complicated, confusing program and a simple, fun, and powerful product.

Form follows function straight to hell.

A powerful tool in the early stages of developing scenarios is to pretend the interface is magic. If your persona has goals and the product has magical powers to meet them, how simple could the interaction be? This kind of thinking is useful to help designers look outside the box.

There's only one thing you can use against pure logic, and that's common sense.

Usability methods are like sandpapering a chair. If you are making a chair, the sandpaper can make it smoother. But no amount of sandpaper will turn a chair into a table.

Computers no longer interface with humans--they interact, and the interaction will become steadily deeper, more subtle, and more crucial to our collective sanity and ultimate survival.

It's harder than you might think to squander millions of dollars, but a flawed software development process is a tool well suited to the job.

Run for your lives-the computers are invading. Awesomely powerful computers tackling ever more important tasks with awkward, old-fashioned interfaces. As these machines leak into every corner of our lives, they will annoy us, infuriate us, and even kill a few of us. In turn, we will be tempted to kill our computers, but we won't dare because we are already utterly, irreversibly dependent on these hopeful monsters that make modern life possible.

Keep it simple: In general, interfaces should use simple geometric forms, minimal contours, and a restricted color palette comprised primarily of less-saturated or neutral colors balanced with a few high contrast accent colors that emphasize important information. Typography should not vary widely in an interface.

Just how do I design if not with prototyping? An excellent question. The short answer is 'on paper.'

While making art you should just do what is in your heart.

Well madam, have you looked in the mirror and seen the state of your nose? Boxing is my excuse. What's yours?

You Don't Have to Go Home from Work Exhausted!

One of the most heinous, insidious lies is the notion that you have to be an asshole to be a successful business person.

To our human minds, computers behave less like rocks and trees than they do like humans, so we unconsciously treat them like people.... In other words, humans have special instincts that tell them how to behave around other sentient beings, and as soon as any object exhibits sufficient cognitive function, those instincts kick in and we react as though we were interacting with another sentient human being.

If you are not going to produce albums then you are not going to produce new fans. It's impossible. I'm a huge believer in putting music out as quickly as early as possible, touring hard and then working on putting the next one out. I don't need to break. I just need to put a record out.

I just try and learn to be a good husband and be a good father before I am a good rock star. That means saying no to certain things that go with the business.

Men do not greet one another like this ... except perhaps at rugby club dinners.

You can get spiritual things out of books and stories and they have nothing to do with religion.

Because computers have memories, we imagine that they must be something like our human memories, but that is simply not true. Computer memories work in a manner alien to human memories. My memory lets me recognize the faces of my friends, whereas my own computer never even recognizes me. My computer's memory stores a million phone numbers with perfect accuracy, but I have to stop and think to recall my own.

It has been said that the great scientific disciplines are examples of giants standing on the shoulders of other giants. It has also been said that the software industry is an example of midgets standing on the toes of other midgets.