India, Oct. 11 -- Don Norman is an irritable, 89-year-old man. After listening to two minutes of platitudes on what an inspiring man he is, he says with a weary wave of the hand, "Why don't we just begin?"

The issue here is, where to begin. Because Norman is the kind of man who didn't just design objects; he redesigned how we think about them. Long before "user experience" became Silicon Valley jargon, he gave it meaning. His fingerprints are on everything; how we open doors, use phones, the checkout buttons on e-commerce website, even how governments think about engaging with citizens. Even some of those who worked on Aadhaar continue to use him as a sounding board. In the design world, Norman's language is the grammar - the rules by wh...