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Designing for the Digital Age by Kim Goodwin

This book was recommended to me as the “Bible” for interaction design. I am in the midst of changing my career focus and doing more designerish work. I am not sure exactly where my new job will lead me, but I figured reading “Designing for the Digital Age” could give me a head start.

I read this book using Safari Books Online and bought a physical copy from Amazon. The physical copy was because I figured I could read it faster if I had both electronic and print versions.

After reading this book I have to agree that it could be the Bible of interaction design as it appears to cover every topic of modern design. But overall I found the book hard to read, repetitive, and very textbook like. I think I would have gotten a lot more out of it with the help of a classroom setting, which is a very rare thing for me indeed as I do not enjoy structured learning at all.

From the publisher:

Whether you’re designing consumer electronics, medical devices, enterprise Web apps, or new ways to check out at the supermarket, today’s digitally-enabled products and services provide both great opportunities to deliver compelling user experiences and great risks of driving your customers crazy with complicated, confusing technology.

Designing successful products and services in the digital age requires a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in interaction design, visual design, industrial design, and other disciplines. It also takes the ability to come up with the big ideas that make a desirable product or service, as well as the skill and perseverance to execute on the thousand small ideas that get your design into the hands of users. It requires expertise in project management, user research, and consensus-building. This comprehensive, full-color volume addresses all of these and more with detailed how-to information, real-life examples, and exercises. Topics include assembling a design team, planning and conducting user research, analyzing your data and turning it into personas, using scenarios to drive requirements definition and design, collaborating in design meetings, evaluating and iterating your design, and documenting finished design in a way that works for engineers and stakeholders alike.

I rate this book a 6 out of 10 because of its textbook like nature, but the information in the book is very valuable and I am glad that I have read it.

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