Reducing a product’s definition to a list of features and functions ignores the real opportunity – orchestrating technological capability to serve human needs and goals. – Alan Cooper
What Microsoft is really good at is endlessly iterating and revving – incrementally improving things that already exist – and those things that already exist are generally acquired from the outside. – Alan Cooper
E-mail is the most influential application ever to appear on a personal computer, and it remains sadly deficient. – Alan Cooper
There’s a fundamental problem with how the software business does things. We’re asking people who are masters of hard-edged technology to design the soft, human side of software as well. As a result, they make products that are really cool – if you happen to be a software engineer. – Alan Cooper
I have a cell phone that doesn’t behave like a phone: It behaves like a computer that makes calls. Computers are becoming an integral part of daily life. And if people don’t start designing them to be more user-friendly, then an even larger part of the population is going to be left out of even more stuff. – Alan Cooper
I think the phrase ‘computer-literate’ is an evil phrase. You don’t have to be ‘automobile-literate’ to get along in this world. You don’t have to be ‘telephone-literate.’ Why should you have to be ‘computer-literate’? – Alan Cooper
A lot of people think, and Microsoft is happy to let them think, that all great things are invented by Microsoft. In fact, very, very little has been invented by Microsoft. – Alan Cooper
We’re building what I call ‘software apartheid.’ We’re in the process of creating a divided society: those who can use technology on one side, and those who can’t on the other. And it happens to divide neatly along economic lines. – Alan Cooper
The payoff of a customer-centric approach to software and digital product design is substantial and long-lasting for both companies and their customers. – Alan Cooper
If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person. – Alan Cooper