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Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design | 
enlarge | Manufacturer: Elsevier Science Category: EBooks
List Price: $49.95 Buy New: $29.67 You Save: $20.28 (41%)
Avg. Customer Rating: 11 reviews Sales Rank: 2053
Format: Kindle Book Media: Kindle Edition Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 448
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.5752 ASIN: B001GS3P9S
Publication Date: March 30, 2007 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Review Books that have proposed bringing design into HCI are aplenty, though books that propose bringing software in to Design less common. Nevertheless, Bill manages to skilfully steer a course between the excesses of the two approaches and offers something truly in-between. It could be a real boon to the innovation business by bringing the best of both worlds: design and HCI. --Richard Harper, Microsoft Research, Cambridge
Review "Bill Buxton and I share a common belief that design leadership together with technical leadership drives innovation. Sketching, prototyping, and design are essential parts of the process we use to create new products. Bill Buxton brings design leadership and creativity to Microsoft. Through his thought-provoking personal examples he is inspiring others to better understand the role of design in their own companies."--Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft
"Informed design is essential." While it might seem that Bill Buxton is exaggerating or kidding with this bold assertion, neither is the case. In an impeccably argued and sumptuously illustrated book, design star Buxton convinces us that design simply must be integrated into the heart of business".--Roger Martin, Dean, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
"Design is explained, with the means and manner for successes and failures illuminated by engaging stories, true examples and personal anecdotes. In Sketching User Experiences, Bill Buxton clarifies the processes and skills of design from sketching to experience modeling, in a lively and informative style that is rich with stories and full of his own heart and enthusiasm. At the start we are lost in mountain snows and northern seas, but by the end we are equipped with a deep understanding of the tools of creative design."--Bill Moggridge, Cofounder of IDEO and author of Designing Interactions
"I love this book. There are very few resources available that see across and through all of the disciplines involved in developing great experiences. This is complex stuff and Buxton's work is both informed and insightful. He shares the work in an intimate manner that engages the reader and you will find yourself nodding with agreement, and smiling at the poignant relevance of his examples."--Alistair Hamilton, Symbol Technologies, NY
"Like any secret society, the design community has its strange rituals and initiation procedures. Bill opens up the mysteries of the magical process of design, taking us through a land in which story telling, orange squeezers, the Wizard of oOz, I-pods, avalanche avoidance, bicycle suspension sketching, and faking it are all points on the design pilgrim's journey. There are lots of ideas and techniques in this book to feed good design and transform the way we think about creating useful stuff. " --Peter Gabriel
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
The value of design September 26, 2008 The word 'design' in English covers such a wide range of activities that it has become unusfully vague, applying as well to designing a business model as to designing a frock. Bill Buxton describes the activities of designers who have usually been to design school rather than engineering or business school. Not many people know what they do, beyond a vague impression that they make things look good. Bill Buxton's book describes, with excellent examples, the range of designers' activities--both functional and aesthetic--and the value to a company of their particular skill: imagining and visualizing ideas for products or services so they can be developed and assessed before time and money is committed to building them. This book is a great demonstration of the value of design to the bottom line and how it can be incorporated in the product development process in the digital realm.
Useless book September 18, 2008 0 out of 13 found this review helpful
I bought this thinking it would be about interactive design (e.g. web, flash, etc.) It's a meandering book that hardly addresses those concerns at all. I kept waiting for it to get to some real meat, but it just walks through examples of industrial design and abstract concepts. A waste of money for me.
But one can sketch in code too May 12, 2008 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a compelling book. It manages to blend business, organizational and design thinking on the user experience. In doing this, Bill Buxton makes the case for (i) the centrality of design in driving business value and (ii) the importance of investing in the design process. The importance of exploration and play in design is called out, and the role of making multiple light, inexpensive sketches of alternatives as an important part of the design process. Buxton also brings together the separate histories of the industrial design (the people who make things) and the software design worlds, sprinkling in some lessons from film making for good measure. And he reinforces the importance of knowing the traditions and their high points if you want to innovate. All of these lessons are vital to our collective future.
I liked this book enough to buy copies for people on my design and business teams, and I will probably give my copy to my boss. I may get a copy for my son as well, who is involved in furniture design in Vancouver.
The book does have a couple of weaknesses. The most serious is that Bill seems to think that people don't sketch in code. I am pretty sure that this is not what he thinks - he has seen plenty of people sketch in code and most of the code created by university researchers is a form of sketch - branching code that explores, plays and demonstrates possibilities. The book can also be read as advocating a waterfall process rather than something more agile. One reason may be that he is focused on the design of interactive objects and environments where there are high production costs. But this kind of waterfall approach is not all that useful for people (such as myself) who are building businesses around the delivery of software as a service. And taking Bill's own advice, and looking out a few years, it seems likely that most of us will have 3D printers in our homes and that eventually these 3D printers will be able to print 3D programmable objects. With shape memory plastics and other such smart materials, one of the things with behaviours (interactions) may even be the shape itself.
Still an important book, and one that points to more thinking and more learning. The gallery of important user experience sketches is worth deep study.
If you're involved in design, read this book May 1, 2008 0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was fortunate enough to see Bill Buxton lecture last year. After the lecture, I picked up this book since it extended on the themes he was discussing. I found his thoughts on the fidelity of the designs for different levels of development extremely helpful.
Outstanding Book April 21, 2008 0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bill Buxton does an outstanding job exploring the role design should play in an organization which really sticks in your head. He also explains how a sketch can go a long way as a communication tool during the product life cycle. Just brilliant.
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