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Books & People
Updated: February 23, 2010
The Books & People corner of the Community section
offers lists of books on user interface and graphic design, well-known
UI people, as well as a growing selection of book reviews. On this
page we also present books and UI
and graphic design experts.
Recent Book Reviews
Garr Reynolds: Presentation Zen (Feb 23, 2010)
Have you ever sat through a presentation that was much too
full of information and much too long? You could hardly look
at the slides, and there was clipart that was out of context?
Looking back, you can hardly remember what the presentation
was about, but you know that you had the feeling someone was
stealing your time. Now, imagine having a completely different
experience – or even being the one to offer people that
different experience! Our author came across Garr Reynolds’ book, Presentation
Zen, when when she had the pleasure of listening to a couple
of presentations given by a colleague that were utterly and
truly different from anything she had ever seen before. Read
why she likes this book.
Read the
review |
Brenda Laurel: Design Research (Feb 2, 2010)
Brenda Laurel's book Design Research, Methods and Perspectives is
on the market since 2003 and still finds new readers. Our review
author read the book just recently and was impressed by it.
She felt like providing a detailed review of the book, because
she found it extremely important for anyone in the user experience
field to read. So, have a look at the review to find out why!
Read the
review |
Riccardo Mazza: Introduction to Information Visualization (Dec
17, 2009)
When our author met Robert Spence briefly at the INTERACT
2009 conference in Uppsala, Sweden, Spence mentioned that there
was a good book about visualization for display at the Springer
book stand. Our author had already seen that there was "something" available
about this topic – but actually it was two books: a new
introductory book by Riccardo Mazza and a second, much more
advanced one by Chaomei Chen. The big question for him was:
Which book had Robert Spence been referring to? He decided
to buy both, and because Mazza's book is new and an introductory
textbook that "focuses on the human aspects of the process
of visualization rather than the algorithmic or graphic design
aspects," he realized that this was the book he should
have read first when initially diving into the topic of visualization.
Unfortunately, the book did not appear until this year.
Read the review |
Book Reviews In Preparation
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New and Recommended
Books
Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza, & Carla Faria Leitão:
Presentation Zen Design – Semiotic Engineering Methods
for Scientific Research in HCI (Feb 23, 2010)
 Semiotic engineering was originally proposed as a semiotic
approach to designing user interface languages. Over the years,
it evolved into a semiotic theory of human-computer interaction
(HCI). It views HCI as computer-mediated communication between
designers and users at interaction time. The system speaks
for its designers in various types of conversations specified
at design time. These conversations communicate the designers'
understanding of who the users are, what they know the users
want or need to do, in which preferred ways, and why. The designers'
message to users includes even the interactive language in
which users will have to communicate back with the system in
order to achieve their specific goals. Hence, the process is,
in fact, one of communication about communication, or
metacommunication. Semiotic engineering has two methods to
evaluate the quality of metacommunication in HCI: the semiotic
inspection method (SIM) and the communicability evaluation
method (CEM). Up to now, they have been mainly used and discussed
in technical contexts. In this book, the authors discuss how
SIM and CEM, which are both qualitative methods, can also be
used in scientific contexts to generate new knowledge about
HCI. To illustrate their points, they present an extensive
case study with the free open-source digital audio editor Audacity.
They show how the results obtained with a triangulation of
SIM and CEM point at new research avenues not only for semiotic
engineering and HCI but also for other areas of computer science
such as software engineering and programming.
(From book abstract, adapted)
Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza, & Carla Faria Leitão
(2009). Semiotic Engineering Methods for Scientific Research
in HCI. Morgan & Claypool Publishers • ISBN:
9781598299441 (Paperback), ISBN: 9781598299458 (Online version)
See the book in the book
list... • Overview
of all featured books |
Garr Reynolds: Presentation Zen Design – Simple Design
Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations (Feb
23, 2010)
 In his book Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation
Design and Delivery, Garr Reynolds gave readers the framework
for planning, putting together, and delivering successful
presentations. Now, he takes us further into the design realm
and shows how we can apply time-honored design principles
to presentation layouts. Throughout Presentation Zen Design, Garr
shares his lessons on designing effective presentations that
contain text, graphs, color, images, and video. After establishing
guidelines for each of the various elements, he explains
how to achieve an overall harmony and balance using the tenets
of Zen simplicity. Not only will you discover how to design
your slides for more professional-looking presentations,
you'll learn to communicate more clearly and will accomplish
the goal of making a stronger, more lasting connection with
your audience.
(From product description, adapted)
Garr Reynolds (2009). Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design
Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations.
New Riders Press • ISBN:
0321668790
See the book in the book
list... • Overview
of all featured books |
Hartmut Esslinger: A Fine Line – How Design Strategies
Are Shaping the Future of Business (Jan 14, 2010)
For the first time, Hartmut Esslinger, internationally acclaimed
designer and founder of frog design, inc., reveals the secrets
to better business through better design. Having spent forty
years helping build the world's most recognizable brands, Esslinger
shows how business leaders and designers can join forces to
build creative strategies that will ensure a more profitable
and sustainable future.
A Fine Line shares the amazing story of Esslinger's
transformation from industrial design wunderkind to a global
innovation powerhouse, while detailing the very real challenges
facing businesses in the new global economy. Offering companies
far more than a temporary innovation booster, Esslinger shows
how he and frog build creative design into the framework of
an organization's competitive strategy, the same approach that
has worked so well for leading edge companies such as Sony,
Louis Vuitton, Lufthansa, Disney, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, Microsoft,
and Apple. SAP employees will find two pages in the book telling
the enjoy story and a few familiar names...
(From product description, adapted)
Hartmut Esslinger (2009). A Fine Line: How Design Strategies
Are Shaping the Future of Business. Jossey-Bass • ISBN:
978-0470451021 (German version: Schwungrat: Wie Design-Strategien
die Zukunft der Wirtschaft gestalten. Wiley-VCH Verlag
GmbH • ISBN
:978-3527504923)
See the book in the book list... • Overview
of all featured books |
Featured UI & Design
People
Hartmut Esslinger (Jan 14, 2010)
Hartmut Esslinger is the founder and longtime co-CEO of frog
design, and now serves as strategic and creative advisor to
the company under the title of frog fellow. His vision has
defined frog and his work has helped to develop the modern
consumer aesthetic, through products like the Sony Trinitron
and Apple Macintosh computer. When Esslinger founded frog design
in his native Germany in 1969, his unique cultural style sparked
a design revolution, pushing industry leaders to address users'
functional and emotional needs simultaneously, and approach
that formed the cornerstone of frog design. In 1996, Esslinger
led frog design through the development of a digital media
group, extending the company's product design concepts into
the virtual world, and on into higher-level business strategy.
frog design's client list is long and includes SAP, where the
company was involved in the enjoy initiative (see philosophy
edition) that revolutionized SAP's user interface.
Esslinger is Founding Professor of the Hochschule für
Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, Germany, and Professor for Convergent
Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria.
His designs are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the
Smithsonian Institute, and Neue Sammlung, Munich. He was featured
in the German pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany. Esslinger
wrote several books, the newest one from 2009 is titled A
Fine Line – How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future
of Business.
(From frog design Website, adapted)
Bio: http://www.frogdesign.com/about/management-team#hartmut-esslinger
See the data in the people
list... • Overview of
all featured people |
Kristina Höök (Nov 24, 2009)
Kristina Höök is the lab manager of the interaction lab at
SICS. She also upholds a position as Professor in Human-Machine
Interaction at Department of Computer and Systems
Sciences that belongs both to Stockholm
University and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).
Since 1994 Höök took part in establishing the HUMLE
laboratory, first through leading one group within the lab,
and then 2000-2003 as the laboratory manager. When she was
appointed professor in 2003, she formed a new group at the
university, but kept a part-time employment at SICS. At SICS,
in October 2004, she formed a new laboratory named the Interaction
Laboratory, and now spends about half-time at SICS and half-time
at the university. Among her research topics are social navigation
and the field of affective interaction. Höök has
published over 50 scientific papers in journals and is a frequent
speaker at conferences.
(From the biography and c.v. on her homepage at SICS; adapted)
Bio: www.sics.se/~kia • C.V.: www.sics.se/~kia/cv.html
See the data in the people list... • Overview
of all featured people |
Richard Anderson (Nov 24, 2009)
Richard I. Anderson, also called Riander, is a user experience
practice, management, and organizational strategy consultant
with more than 20 years of experience. His work has spanned
multiple roles, including managing director, consultant, advisor,
facilitator, practitioner, and teacher. He offers services
in the following areas: leadership/management, mentoring/support,
or guided exploration and learning. Anderson is a frequent
speaker at conferences and maintains a blog.
In 2007, Anderson has been named Incoming Co-Editor-in-Chief
of the interactions magazine (with Jon Kolko)."
(From Website,
adapted) |
About: www.well.com/~riander/about.html
See the data in the people
list... • Overview
of all featured people |
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