The Inmates Are Running the
Asylum: Why High Tech Products
Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore
the Sanity by Alan Cooper
Great Book - Makes A Passionate Case To Move From Developer Cetric To Customer
Centric
The recurring metaphor in The Inmates are Running the Asylum is that of
the dancing bear--the circus bear that shuffles clumsily for the amusement
of the audience. Such bears, says author Alan Cooper, dont dance well, as
everyone at the circus can see. What amazes the crowd is that the bear
dances at all. Cooper argues that technology (videocassette recorders, car
alarms, most software applications for personal computers) consists
largely of dancing bears--pieces that work, but not at all well. He goes on
to say that this is more often than not the fault of poorly designed user
interfaces, and he makes a good argument that way too many devices
(perhaps as a result of the designers subconscious wish to bully the

people who tormented them as children) ask too much of their users. Too
many systems (like the famous unprogrammable VCR) make their users
feel stupid when they cant get the job done. Cooper, who designed
Visual Basic (the programming environment Microsoft promotes for the
purpose of creating good user interfaces), indulges in too much name-
dropping and self-congratulation (Cooper attributes the quote, How did you
do that? to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, upon looking at one of Coopers
creations)--but this appears to be de rigueur in books about the software
industry. But those asides are minor. More valuable is the discourse about
software design and implementation ([O]bject orientation divides the 1000-
brick tower into 10 100-brick towers.). Read this book for an idea of whats
wrong with UI design. --David Wall Topics covered: User interfaces--
good ones and bad ones--and where they come from. Also, how to
improve the ones you create.
Personal Review: The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why
High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the
Sanity by Alan Cooper
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.
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