Alan Cooper，作為20世紀70年代中葉的一名軟件發明傢，Alan Cooper堅信必然存在一種更好的方式創建軟件。新的方法，應該通過應用“使用者第一、矽片第二”原則的設計和工程過程，使軟件使用者從讓人厭煩、睏惑、不恰當的軟件行為中解放齣來。采用這種方法，技術團隊能夠在第一時間做對事情，因而，也就能更快地創建更好的産品。 他的信念結齣瞭碩果。1990年，他創建瞭Cooper公司，一傢技術産品設計公司。今天，Cooper在軟件設計方麵的創新手法已經被認可為行業標準。在Cooper打開麵嚮商業的大門後的十年時間裏，這傢舊金山公司嚮諸如Abbott Laboratories、Align Technologies、Discover Financial Services、Dolby、愛立信、富士通、富士通Softek、惠普、Informatica、IBM、羅技、Merck-Medco、微軟、Overture、SAP、SHS Healthcare、Sony、Sun Microsystems、Toro、Varian，以及VISA公司提供瞭創新的、以使用者為焦點的解決方案。

Imagine, at a terrifyingly aggressive rate, everything you regularly use is being equipped with computer technology. Think about your phone, cameras, cars-everything-being automated and programmed by people who in their rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, have abdicated their responsibility to make these products easy to use. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum argues that the business executives who make the decisions to develop these products are not the ones in control of the technology used to create them. Insightful and entertaining, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum uses the author's experiences in corporate America to illustrate how talented people continuously design bad software-based products and why we need technology to work the way average people think. Somewhere out there is a happy medium that makes these types of products both user and bottom-line friendly; this book discusses why we need to quickly find that medium.