So what does a good teacher do? Create tension - but just the right amount.

Our information lives will be better served when we are free to get to our information from wherever we are, with any device available.

Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.

When you have trouble with things—whether it's figuring out whether to push or pull a door or the arbitrary vagaries of the modern computer and electronics industries—it's not your fault. Don't blame yourself: blame the designer.

We delude ourselves if we believe that skilled behavior is easy, that it can come about without effort. We forget the years of tuning, of learning and practice it takes to be skilled at even the most fundamental of human activities: eating, walking, talking, reading, and writing. It is tempting to want instant gratification - immediate expert performance and experiential pleasure - but the truth is that this primarily occurs only after considerable amounts of accretion and tuning.

I believe that the Apple Shuffle is an excellent compromise among the conflicting requirements of simplicity, elegance, size, battery life, and function

The problem with emotion was that it was clearly something important, but-at least according to the old philosophy-it was something to overcome.