Imagine, at a terrifyingly aggressive rate, everything you regularly use is being equipped with computer technology. Think about your phone, cameras, cars-everything-being automated and programmed by people who in their rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, have abdicated their responsibility to make these products easy to use. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum argues that the business executives who make the decisions to develop these products are not the ones in control of the technology used to create them. Insightful and entertaining, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum uses the author's experiences in corporate America to illustrate how talented people continuously design bad software-based products and why we need technology to work the way average people think. Somewhere out there is a happy medium that makes these types of products both user and bottom-line friendly; this book discusses why we need to quickly find that medium.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 140 Ratings

Way overrated - 2009-10-23
Reviewer Rating:
In graduate school this book was considered "must reading". I'm not sure why. Sitting down and reading this book from beginning to end would be a waste of time. This book is often credited with popularizing the use of "personas". Many who work in industry will tell you that personas are costly, time consuming and ultimately unhelpful. In short, they are a waste of time. I personally believe that UCD will start to go more in the direction of activity-centered design, following the lead of the likes of Donald Norman, Robert Hoekman and Jared Spool. Personas will likely prove to be little more than a UCD passing fad.

Good case for interaction design, great for newbies - 2009-08-24
Reviewer Rating:
Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity

by Alan Cooper, SAMS, 1999

Cooper wanted to provide with this book a business case for improved UI design. He wanted to make a case that there was a strong need for improved interaction design. The case no doubt stands as strong today as 10 years ago. While one sees progress at leading companies in terms of usability, the sheer abundance and explosion of human/computer interaction has no doubt caused the friction and frustration with poorly designed interfaces to increase rather than decrease.

Cooper has also written "how-to" books on interaction design: "About Face" in which he describes the techniques to come to good "interaction" design. If you're looking for techniques, it is no doubt more worthwhile to investigate "About Face".

In the "Inmates", Cooper raises several very worthwhile insights and approaches. Professionals in the industry will definitely connect with the messages and follow Cooper's reasoning. Design will reduce the number of iterations needed to come to a good product, and will reduce your overall time and cost needed. We know this, but do not necessarily do this in all projects. Which is why Cooper advocates the strong integration of design in your culture and processes. And why he wrote the book in the first place.

Yet, at the same time, Cooper's tone and stance towards engineers and programmers could easily be seen as alienating and by some even as arrogant. Which, in the end, somewhat diminishes the goal of the book. The goal after all is to influence the professional software community, existing mostly out of engineers and programmers. In my summary, I left out most of these comments when Cooper gets somewhat carried away about how software engineers are wired differently ('homo logicus').

In the end, it is a light and easy-to-read, often amusing book which is making a good case for the strongly-needed discipline of design. If you're not familiar with the topic, it is no doubt worth your time.

[...]

A must read for anyone who has their hands in the software development process - 2009-08-23
Reviewer Rating:
This book was really eye opening to me. Showing how different software engineering is from traditional (civil, mechanical, electrical, etc.) in the sense that you are creating an ever evolving product. Though it also shows how we need to be treating it more like traditional engineering by going into the development process with more of a blueprint how how it should interact with the user. Imagine trying to build a house without blueprints! This is how I and most (if not all) other programmers that I know develop.

This book is not just for the developers out there, in fact it's only marginally for them. This book is aimed at managers of the software development process. Basically managers need to understand that more (some?) time needs to be placed on how the program will interact with *users* before it is sent to the developers.

Though with that said all people involved in the process of software development need to be aware of this shortcoming that is so often found in the development process.

for fun but not educational. - 2009-02-08
Reviewer Rating:
You have to remember this book is written ~a decade ago. Some information is a bit old. It is ok to read.

However, as a engineering student, I feel that he shouldn't place all the fault on the engineers. My impression of the book is that all the hassles and faults with computer lies with software engineers and managers, none on the users because you shouldn't have to learn it, ppl should know how to use it immediately.

Read it for fun, there are some informative part, but take them with a grain of salt.

Great book - Makes a passionate case to move from developer cetric to customer centric - 2009-01-22
Reviewer Rating:
Great book - Makes a passionate case to move from developer cetric to customer centric. This the book that introduced the incredibly useful notion on Personas to the hitech world.

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