Alan Cooper Quotes

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

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

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.

Form follows function straight to hell.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

We don't fight about music. We don't fight about artistic direction. The things like that we could fight about, we really don't. We are pretty lucky for that.

If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person.