The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
Authors: Alan Cooper
Venue:  (1999)

:Why are VCRs impossible to program? Why do car alarms make us all crazy at all the wrong times? Why do our computers reprimand us when they screw up? All of these computerized devices are wildly sophisticated and powerful, and they have proliferated our desks, our cars, our homes and our offices. So why are they still so dauntingly complicated to use? The highly renowned Alan Cooper, "The Father of Visual Basic," tackles this issue head-on with his new book, The Inmates are Running the Asylum, from Sams Publishing. Cooper believes that powerful and pleasurable software-based products can be created by the simple expedient of designing computer-based products first and then building them. Designing interactive software-based products is a specialty that is as demanding as the construction of these same products, Cooper says. Ironically, building computerized products isn't difficult, they only seem so because our process for making them is out of date. To compound the problem, the costs of badly designed software are incalculable, robbing us of time, customer loyalty, competitive advantage and opportunity. The Inmates are Running the Asylum also addresses the societal dangers of what Cooper calls "software apartheid," where otherwise normal people are kept from entering the job market and participating in society because they cannot use computers effectively. While social activists are working hard to break down race and class barriers, technologies are hard at work inadvertently erecting new, bigger ones. "By purposefully designing software-based products to be more human and forgiving, we can automatically make them more inclusive, more class- and color-blind," Cooper writes. Using examples from his own work with companies of all sizes, Cooper offers a provocative, insightful and entertaining explanation for this phenomenon. He believes that in part, the problem lies in the fact that business executives in the high-tech industry have relinquished their control to the engineers and techies. In the rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, responsibility has been abandoned, and "the inmates have been allowed to run the asylum." The solution, Cooper says, is to harness those talents to create products that will both thrill their users and grow the bottom line. The book is written for two new archetypes emerging in contemporary business: "The technology-savvy businessperson," who knows that his success depends on the quality of the information available to him and the sophistication with which he uses it; and "the business-savvy technologist," an entrepreneurial engineer or scientist with a keen business sense and an awareness of the power of information. About the Author: Alan Cooper is the "Father of Visual Basic," according to Mitch Waite, founder of Waite Group Press. In 1994, Bill Gates gave him the rare and coveted Windows Pioneer Award--recognizing how his part in the invention of VB contributed to the success of Microsoft Windows. Cooper's influential book, About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design (IDG Books) has sold over 40,000 since August of 1995. His title continues to sell about 300-400 copies a month. He now leads Cooper Interaction Design, a consulting firm that has created breakthrough interactive product designs for IBM, Sony, Logitech and several Internet/intranet start-ups. For twenty years Alan Cooper designed and developed consumer software products including SuperProject, MicroPhone II for Windows, and Microsoft's visual programming user interface for Visual Basic. Cooper is a member of the Corporate Design Foundation and American Center for Design. He is a former director of the Association for software Designs Silicon Valley Chapter and a member of the national organization's Board of Directors. He is a frequent, opinionated and engaging industry speaker and writer on the topics of user interface and conceptual design.