@dkmj They had a lot of first-mover advantage and of course have always been children of their time… My perhaps biggest criticism is an unwillingness to grow, acknowledge missteps and to listen to other voices, even as they preach how important it is to make those voices heard. This is an interesting one on Norman:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90868431/the-problem-with-don-norman

I've personally found Norman better at reasoning around potential weaknesses in his own thinking (I've interviewed him twice) but then slowly realised that he never acts on that seemingly sensible reasoning. In his later writings he is essentially saying that he got a lot of his early stuff wrong, but when doubling down on a flavor of co-creation and 'reinventing design education' I haven't seen examples of bringing that thinking to his own practice.

Nielsen's work I've always had a hard time understanding why people latch on to. So much of it is oversimplification and bold assertions based on data that is rarely supporting the exact conclusion he makes. I also take issue with how often he talks about IQ in ableist ways, which definitely biases me against him.