"Emotional Design" is Norman's realization that his "The Design of Everyday Things " book was kind of incomplete. Not that it was wrong, but it lacked a fundamental aspect of how people perceive and use things: emotion. In "Emotional Design" Norman presents a framework for design based on three levels of processing at the human brain:

Unlike many other books that might be classified as personal development, self-help or self-management books, "The 7 Habits..." does not give you quick rules. The book describes a principle-centered approach to life and habits based on that approach. The title might suggest a time-management book, but it is not. It is not a GTD-like book and it will not keep your inbox at zero.

The habits are by no means quick and easy solutions, they require a lot of effort, strength and perseverance, but they all just "feel right".

In a nutshell: the digital economy has made possible to take advantage of niche products in a unprecedented way. Products that don't sell enough don't make it to the stores because stores have limited shelf space. In the Web however, products don't need shelfs. Combine this with low delivery costs and the way to sell only a few of an imense variety opens up. 

A book to be read in a couple of hours. 

Maeda writes about how simplicity influences our perception of things and how simplicity can be achieved in many different ways. He describes 10 laws to achieve simplicity:

Law 1: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

Law 2: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.

Law 3: Savings in time feel like simplicity.

Law 4: Knowledge makes everything simpler.

Law 5: Simplicity and complexity need each other.

Law 6: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.

Law 7: More emotions are better than less.

Law 8: In simplicity we trust.

Law 9: Some things can never be made simple.

Law 10:  Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

The book has a companion site where Maeda wrote about examples of simplicity: http://lawsofsimplicity.com

The last post about "The Evolution of Useful Things" reminded me about another of Petroski's books that I read some years ago: "To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design". It's also about failure but in a different perspective: how failure makes the engineering activity evolve.

Failure has, obviously, a tight relation with engineering. A great part of engineering is making sure that something works within certain bounds of acceptable (ab)use in the most efficient manner possible. In this book Petroski describes some well-known catastrophic failures of engineering structures like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways and how they came to happen and how they served as example to improve subsequent structures.

These two books also remind me that scientific research is also much about finding failure and trying to develop a way to mitigate it....