Book SummaryUser Friendly, by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of User Friendly

We live in an age where sophisticated technologies are increasingly pervasive: In the US people interact with smart watches while out for a jog and hand over mobile tablets to children who can operate them with ease. User interfaces are so intuitive and streamlined that we don’t need a manual to figure out how every mobile application on a smartphone works or how to use a new laptop. But what is it about specific technologies that allows them to integrate seamlessly into our day-to-day lives, and how did user-friendliness become the bedrock of innovation?

In User Friendly, published in 2019, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant explore the evolution of user-friendly design—how the concept emerged from the feminist movement in the 1920s, how it has morphed into the highly personalized and addictive forms of technology that we have today, and how it might be leveraged to improve human well-being in the future.

Kuang is a user experience designer at Google. He has also been a journalist and editor for magazines...

User Friendly Summary Components of User-Friendly Design

First, what exactly does user-friendly and human-centered design mean? What criteria are user experience designers thinking about when they invent a new gadget, and what makes products appealing and intuitive to consumers?

Kuang and Fabricant explain that user-friendly products must prioritize the needs of the user, have a mental model or underlying metaphor that makes them easily navigable, and for more advanced technologies like computers—they should mirror human values in the way they interact with us. In the rest of this section, we’ll dive deeper into each of these qualities and how they show up in everyday products.

Addresses User Needs

The first key quality of a user-friendly device is something that fundamentally makes the user’s life easier. Kuang and Fabricant contend that it’s not enough for a product to simply look nice—it must also be something that people are motivated to use.

(Shortform note: Most definitions of “user-friendly” include two key components: how easy it is to use (also known as discoverability...

User Friendly Summary The Evolution of User-Friendly Design

Now that we’ve explained what makes a product user-friendly, we’ll explore the history of the user experience profession in the US and how it has evolved over the years. Kuang and Fabricant trace the roots of this field to three key historical periods: the rise of industrial design for household products during the 1920s, the increase in demand for user-friendly military devices during World War II, and the Silicon Valley technology boom starting in the 1970s.

The Birth of Industrial Design

Kuang and Fabricant write that the 1920s in the US was when manufacturers first showed a stronger interest in ergonomics, which emphasizes efficiency and ease of use rather than making decorative items without significant updates to their functionality. Women in the US had just gained the right to vote in 1919, and at the advent of what’s called first-wave feminism, there was suddenly a huge demand for kitchen gadgetry that would reduce the amount of time women had to spend doing domestic work.

This rising demand among women for useful household products linked business interests (the need to sell products and expand their market) with social progress and product design. During...

User Friendly Summary Negative Consequences of User-Friendliness

Now that we’ve described the evolution of user-friendly design over the last century, we’ll dive into Kuang and Fabricant’s description of the current state of user-friendly technologies: The authors contend that user-friendly design principles have contributed to widespread addiction to social media, websites, and mobile apps.

Kuang and Fabricant argue that rather than prioritizing making digital platforms easy to use, developers now leverage behavioral psychology to encourage users to spend more time engaging with their products. The “like” button (invented by Facebook) illustrates how an addiction to this feedback mechanism—combined with the profit motive of companies—has cascading negative effects on users’ mental health, interpersonal relationships, and the quality and type of information they’re exposed to online.

(Shortform note: In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport contends that people’s constant engagement with technology has also led to mental health decline due to “solitude deprivation.”...

User Friendly Summary Making Technology More Humane

Kuang and Fabricant’s discussion of the harmful effects of modern technology leads to what they argue is the central challenge of user-friendly design moving forward: How can we use technology to genuinely improve society and enhance people’s lives? The authors provide two main recommendations to achieve this vision of a user-friendly world: Streamline many of the gadgets in people’s lives and design technologies that adhere to users’ values.

Consolidating Personal Gadgetry

Kuang and Fabricant point out a major limitation of the smart gadgets that have become commonplace in the US: the sheer number of applications and devices people switch between as they go about their day. The authors write that this is partly because companies want to maximize the products they sell and also because of people’s mental models about how technology should work.

For example, Kuang and Fabricant assert that Americans have internalized the idea that there’s a single app for everything—even dozens of apps to choose from that do the same thing. Their mental model of smartphones includes app stores where they can browse through different options and individual icons that they locate to do...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Your User Experience

Kuang and Fabricant write that user experience design prioritizes the user in multiple ways: by considering what kind of product will be valuable to the user, by using a mental model that helps the user understand how the product works, and by using good feedback to make the product operation intuitive. Use these exercises to reflect on how the products in your daily life meet these user-friendly standards.

Write down a technology or product that you use almost daily and that you think of as indispensable. Why is it valuable to you, and how does it make your life easier?

Shortform Exercise: Assess Your Relationship to Digital Platforms

Kuang and Fabricant write that some companies have leveraged principles of behavioral psychology to make people addicted to digital products such as social media platforms, apps, and games. This represents a shift away from companies utilizing user-friendliness as a way to improve people’s lives and instead using it to take advantage of people for profit. Use the following exercises to assess the beneficial or harmful roles of social media and digital products in your life.

Write down one of the digital products that you use regularly. This could include things like a social media app like Instagram, a specific website, or a game that you play on your phone. How does the experience of using this product enhance your life? Does it help you feel connected to people, help you relax, or is it educational?