The Inmates Are Running the Asylum (Chapters 8-14)

I think it's safe to say that Alan Cooper's tone softens somewhat in the second half of this book.  While the first seven chapters concerned themselves primarily with calling out the hubris and generally dickish behavior of programmers, the latter seven offered constructive suggestions and real-world examples of how to fix the problems present in the software industry.  It was refreshing to see solutions offered to balance out all the acidic complaining.  His concept of developing for "personas" rather than the generic "user" has a lot of merit - I even found myself using this process with my project team when developing our sketch application.

As I stated in my summary of the first seven chapters, I think a lot of the things Cooper has to say in this book lack the impact in 2010 that they had in 1999 largely because so much of it is part of the industry now.  Companies do focus on interaction design.  Programmers aren't the huge jocks they used to be (at least not to as large a degree).  The software we have now is better than what we used to make.  Is some of it still dancing bearware?  Probably.  I don't think that kind of software will ever completely disappear.  However, I think it's safe to say at this point that (forgive me) the inmates are no longer running the asylum.

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum (Chapters 1-7)

My initial reaction to Alan Cooper's The Inmates Are Running the Asylum was almost the same as to Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things -- these are the irrelevant rants of a cranky old professor who has nothing better to do than complain and would sooner send mail via carrier pigeon than learn to use "one of these newfangled machines."  I'm sure this was due in part to his less-than-hospitable treatment of programmers and his unapologetic tone, and part due to my tendency to not take seriously as a technology authority an individual who can't open a Word document.

As I read on, however, my critical attitude softened somewhat.  Some of his arguments (particularly concerning "dancing bearware" and "cognitive friction") seemed apropos to the modern discussion of software design.  A lot of what he argued was really a paraphrasing of Norman's points in TDoET, applied almost exclusively to interface design.  My annoyance (and sometimes anger) at his vitriol aimed toward programmers turned to pity over the course of the book as I slowly started to put myself in his place -- and time -- and realized that most of the mistakes he rails against simply aren't happening anymore.  
The software of the turn of the century was, as Cooper says, written and designed primarily by programmers who were as much concerned with finding discrete, creative ways to blame users for the problems with their programs (giving them an out for responsibility) as they were with making money from the stuff they continued to shovel onto hapless computer owners.  Obviously, this pattern revealed itself when the dot-com bubble burst and a large contingent of these shovelware developers disappeared as quickly as they had come.  No doubt much of Cooper's readily apparent bitterness stems from his time working with such companies.

The developers that remained, however, learned their lesson and have started to design in a much more user-centric manner.  Cooper's arguments didn't seem relevant to me because they aren't relevant -- companies are already doing the things he's talking about.  Additionally, I felt that some of his concerns didn't apply to a society where a large part of the population has grown up using computers (though he would undoubtedly classify our generation as "scarred" to the point of numbness by our experiences with poorly-designed interfaces).  I don't know how large a part his writings and work influenced the industry, but I do know that a lot has changed since this book was published.  Apple, Microsoft, and other developers spend millions of dollars on interface design for every product they make, and though I'm sure Alan Cooper may still think they're far from perfect, the software products of today are much more user-centric than those of the past.