Norman is an active Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he spends two months a year teaching.[when?]

After four years with the Center, Norman took a position as an associate professor in the Psychology Department at University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Norman applied his training as an engineer and computer scientist, and as an experimental and mathematical psychologist, to the emerging discipline of cognitive science.

[12][non-primary source needed] Together with psychologist Tim Shallice, Norman proposed a framework of attentional control of executive functioning.[when?]

His article "The truth about Unix: The user interface is horrid"[14] in Datamation (1981) catapulted him to a position of prominence in the computer world.

Norman continued his work to further human-centered design by serving on numerous university and government advisory boards such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

serves on numerous committees and advisory boards like at Motorola, the Toyota National College of Technology, TED Conference, Panasonic, Encyclopædia Britannica and many more.

In 2014, he returned to UCSD to become director of the newly established The Design Lab housed at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.

In 2011 Norman was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for the development of design principles based on human cognition that enhance the interaction between people and technology.

[citation needed] The principles and characteristics outlined in the book are relatable to the field of product design, both in a physical and a digital context.

[23] In his book The Things that Make Us Smart: Defending the Human Attribute in the Age of the Machine,[24][better source needed] Norman uses the term "cognitive artifacts" to describe "those artificial devices that maintain, display, or operate upon information in order to serve a representational function and that affect human cognitive performance".

Norman published several important books during his time at UCSD, one of which, User Centered System Design, obliquely referred to the university in the initials of its title.