Summary: The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

Review and Analysis of Cooper's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782806233646
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Software Development
• Index: Computer Science

The must-read summary of Alan Cooper's book: `The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Alan Cooper's book `The Inmates Are Running the Asylum` shows that computer technology is embedded within almost every product that is manufactured. Yet all too often, these ''new-and-improved’’ products are hard to use because the engineers who are developing the interface between the user and the machine don’t think like the average man-on-the-street who knows nothing about technology. Therefore, the situation effectively becomes the equivalent of letting the inmates run the asylum in which they are incarcerated. Better products need to be developed that work in the same way that average people think. Only then will new products deliver on their implied promise of enhancing the quality of life for their users. According to Alan Cooper, designers who are skilled in this specific field should be responsible for designing the interface between the user and the machine. This summary asserts that the goal of computer usage should be `not to make anyone feel stupid`. 

Added-value of this summary: 
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To learn more, read `The Inmates Are Running the Asylum` and rethink entrenched priorities in software planning.

Summary of The Inmates Are Running The Asylum (Alan Cooper)

Section 1
Computer Obliteracy

Main Idea

Instead of expecting consumers to become “computer literate” -- by changing the ways they normally do things -- high-tech product designers should instead be spending more time and effort developing better interfaces between humans and computers that are usable and productive.

In short, the current generation of computerized tools are too hard for humans to use productively.

Supporting Ideas

Computer based products are invariably harder to use than they need to be because the wrong design process has been used in their development. Many high-tech companies constantly add new features and designs to their products in an effort to outperform their competitors -- but with the unwanted side-effect that the products become more complicated and have a number of features which are rarely, if ever, used.

This problem is increasing in importance primarily because computers are becoming increasingly intertwined with every other type of product. For example:

• When you cross a computer with a car, you get a car that behaves like a computer.
• When you cross a computer with a bank (like at an ATM), you get a bank that acts like a computer -- with rules that absolutely must be followed or the transaction will be rejected, even if the rules are totally counter-productive in specific circumstances.

So why is it that so many high-tech products are hard to use? It’s very simple:

1. Most interfaces between the user and the machine are driven by programmers who are sympathetic to the nature and needs of computers rather than real-world managers who identify with the needs of the users.
2. The main goal of a programmer is to make the development process as easy as possible. Users, by contrast, want using the machine to be simple and easy. There’s a conflict of interest.
3. The most commonly used frame-of-reference for a programmer is another programmer who is equally technically inclined. These people are completely unaware the bulk of the population don’t think the same way they do.
4. Most software projects leave it to the programmers to design the interface. By the time it is realized the preferences of the programmer are out of touch with the consumer’s preferences, it’s too late to change anything. Therefore, making use of the software easy and pleasurable for ordinary consumers becomes the goal for the next upgrade.
5. By the time the next upgrade rolls around, there is now a large base of experienced users who have altered their way of acting to suit the arbitrary constraints demanded by the first generation of the software. Developers now face a choice between developing an interface that is far more natural and intuitive -- thereby disenfranchising those who learned the old, hard way -- or developing something that is far more natural. Most projects have a built-in bias towards their historical base of installed users, and therefore bad designs are carried over to future generations more for familiarity than usefulness.

Most software tends to be designed by accident by people who don’t intend to use it personally in the future -- preferring instead to use other, more powerful tools at their disposal.

To understand, describe and ultimately remedy this problem, some new terminology is required:

• “Cognitive friction” -- the resistance encountered by the human intellect when it faces a complex system of rules that changes as the problem alters. For example, on a computer keyboard, some keys have one meaning when being used to enter information and another meaning altogether when used as a system command.
• “Interaction design” -- the process of developing software that aligns naturally with the way people think rather than forcing them to act differently -- the software equivalent of putting an Armani suit on Attila the Hun.

The problem with designing good software interfaces is simply that many consumers are willing to put up with poorly designed interfaces to obtain the benefits. In fact, more ofte...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of The Inmates Are Running The Asylum (Alan Cooper)
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