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jeff's review
3.0
I'm torn on this. In many ways, it feels like the worthy sequel to "Design of Everyday Things." However, outside of the first few chapters which were quite good, I found most of the insights and stories forgettable. A non-design-practitioner may find it more interesting!
in_and_out_of_the_stash's review against another edition
3.0
Although I found this book interesting, by the amount of time taken for me to read it, it wasn't interesting enough. Although, much of it is still relevant today and after the Boeing debacle it is interesting to note that user error is now being thrown back as designer error.
thebookvvitch's review
5.0
One book every designer must read. If you're not a designer, read it to better understand the products and services designed for you and so you can hold them to account.
lmclar12's review against another edition
5.0
5 stars. I’d say this is a really good book to begin with if you’re interested in becoming a UX designer/researcher or if you’re just interested in learning more about it. Gives a great overview of the history and how that has affected the “user friendly” world we live in today.
mhawelka's review against another edition
4.0
I think I expected something different from this book. Expected some guidelines mixed with real-life stories, and got mostly the latter. There's a lot of interesting design stories with explanations of how they affected our lives, there's some product design history, and then also some failure stories.
In my opinion, it lacked a more "academic" approach. I don't mean to make it fully academic, because nobody would read that, but a bit more would be great :D
In my opinion, it lacked a more "academic" approach. I don't mean to make it fully academic, because nobody would read that, but a bit more would be great :D
bentohbox's review against another edition
5.0
Thought-provoking and insightful, the authors push you to consider not just the ways in which the definition of design and function have changed in the Modern Age, but also how we can apply our own understanding of design and "user-friendliness" in our own lives. They make clear how meticulously thought out every function and object we interact with is, tailored to both our strengths and, maybe even more importantly, our most fundamental flaws. How we concurrently shape the world around us and live in the sandbox of someone else's imagination about us.
The one question that dug at me throughout the book -- why do we stop at user-friendly design in the physical and digital world? Everything we create, whether that be an app or a nonprofit, has to be designed with the most basic user in mind in order to succeed, and yet too often, we treat the non-physical world as a manifestation incapable of tailoring to the experience and use of others. Doing so would be a maybe-not-so-radical reimagination of the ways by which we revolutionize the sectors and organizations that seem most outdated.
This is certainly a book I will return to consistently in the future, owing not necessarily to the way it was written (it can sometimes be quite dense), but rather to the ideas and inspirations it provides. Coming from an outside perspective, where the principles of user-friendly design are neither apparent nor particularly common knowledge, I think this book provides a wonderful baseline by which programs and organizations can be evaluated.
The one question that dug at me throughout the book -- why do we stop at user-friendly design in the physical and digital world? Everything we create, whether that be an app or a nonprofit, has to be designed with the most basic user in mind in order to succeed, and yet too often, we treat the non-physical world as a manifestation incapable of tailoring to the experience and use of others. Doing so would be a maybe-not-so-radical reimagination of the ways by which we revolutionize the sectors and organizations that seem most outdated.
This is certainly a book I will return to consistently in the future, owing not necessarily to the way it was written (it can sometimes be quite dense), but rather to the ideas and inspirations it provides. Coming from an outside perspective, where the principles of user-friendly design are neither apparent nor particularly common knowledge, I think this book provides a wonderful baseline by which programs and organizations can be evaluated.
sbelasco40's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a very well-written case for the importance of UX design. While it does devote some time to discussing the problems and pitfalls of user-centered design, the authors definitely come out on the side of this paradigm that marries capitalism, cognitive psychology, and tech. I get frustrated with how much UX designers like to act as if they invented this idea of creating products and services around the needs of users/clients/patrons/customers - as if this has not been the dominant philosophy guiding many of the service professions for quite some time before Apple figured out how to make people addicted to their phones. But still - this is a solid read.