Some men see machines as they are and ask, "Why?" Donald Norman dreams of machines that never were and says, "Why not?"Actually, in this new book on the need for successors to the personal computer, Norman pursues both questions. And he answers them with the same wit, perceptiveness and prophetic zeal that made his 1988 book The Psychology of Everyday Things a minor classic.

Norman is a prominent expert in behavioral design, the art of creating tools that mesh well with their users. Well-designed objects, he teaches, require no special effort in order to be understood and operated. They do their jobs without calling attention to themselves. They make work efficient, even pleasurable.