Usability is not often thought of as a criterion during the purchasing process. Moreover, unless you actually test a number of units in a realistic e… - Donald Norman

When a device as simple as a door has to come with an instruction manual—even a one-word manual—then it is a failure, poorly designed.

Technologists are not noted for learning from the errors of the past. They look forward, not behind, so they repeat the same problems over and over again. [...] As each new technology matures, customers are no longer happy with the flashy promises of the technology but instead demand understandable and workable designs. Slowly the manufacturers relearn the same basic principles and apply them to their products. The most egregious failures always come from the developers of the most recent technologies.

In the consumer economy taste is not the criterion in the marketing of expensive soft drinks, usability is not the primary criterion in the marketing of home and office appliances. We are surrounded with objects of desire, not objects of use.