Design of Everyday Things Framework

Foundational design principles for creating products that are intuitive, discoverable, and understandable. The "bible of UX" — applicable to physical products, software, and any human-designed system.

Core Principle

Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible. When something fails, users blame themselves — but the fault is almost always in the design. Great design bridges the gap between what people want to do and what the product allows: it is discoverable (you can figure out what to do) and understandable (you can figure out what happened).

Scoring

Goal: 10/10. Rate any design 0-10 on discoverability, understandability, and error prevention. A 10/10 means users figure out what to do without instructions, understand what happened, and recover from errors easily. Report the current score and the improvements needed to reach 10/10.

The Two Gulfs

Every interaction with a product requires bridging two gulfs: