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We need to remove the word failure from our vocabulary, replacing it instead with learning experience. To fail is to learn: we learn more from our failures than from our successes. With success, sure, we are pleased, but we often have no idea why we succeeded. With failure, it is often possible to figure out why, to ensure that it will never happen again. Scientists know this. Scientists do experiments to learn how the world works. Sometimes their experiments work as expected, but often they don’t. Are these failures? No, they are learning experiences. Many of the most important scientific discoveries have come from these so-called failures.

Failure can be such a powerful learning tool that many designers take pride in their failures that happen while a product is still in development. One design firm, IDEO, has it as a creed: “Fail often, fail fast,”

Excerpted from ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Don Norman