Rating: 
Summary: Don't make the mistake...
Review: ... of throwing away your Amazon receipt for this vacant piece of eye candy. I bought this book because of a glowing review from Derek Powazek, author of "Design for Community". I respected Derek's opinion because I have "Design for Community" and am very impressed with it.But "experience design" is simply too hip for it's own good, and trying to locate any useful information is an exercise in frustration. A much better book (for Web site designers at least) is "Don't Make Me Think!" by Steve Krug.
Rating:
Summary: Don't make the mistake...
Review: ... of throwing away your Amazon receipt for this vacant piece of eye candy. I bought this book because of a glowing review from Derek Powazek, author of "Design for Community". I respected Derek's opinion because I have "Design for Community" and am very impressed with it. But "experience design" is simply too hip for it's own good, and trying to locate any useful information is an exercise in frustration. A much better book (for Web site designers at least) is "Don't Make Me Think!" by Steve Krug.
Rating: 
Summary: Required reading for creative people
Review: ...Web designers constantly face the challenge of creating yet another original Web site that sets its own style. Experience Design 1 by Nathan Shedroff approaches the challenge of combining visual design, branding, and information architecture, in a new way -- through the lens of experience design. Because of this approach, the book is valuable for creators everywhere, from visual designers, to writers, to project managers. Shedroff was the creative director of vivid studios, a Web shop known for its innovative design and brand-building through the nineties. In his work with clients like Nike and Herman Miller, the author learned what big ticket clients really want. Beyond needing a cool site and a memorable brand, they want to provide their customers with an experience. Shedroff has taken what he learned from those years and distilled it into Experience Design 1. The book is about the experience a design creates, from beginning to end. The author takes familiar concepts like feedback, interactivity, and usability, and illustrates each with an online and offline example. In doing so, Shedroff lets you extract the essence of the user experience from the particular media in which it takes place.... Since reading Experience Design 1, I've found myself returning to it -- not as a reference manual, but as an inspirational tool. In those dreaded moments when the checkerboard pattern of the Photoshop tabula rasa seems to stretch on forever, flipping to a random page and reading about the windows in a French museum or the performers in a circus always seems to replenish my creative juices.
Rating: 
Summary: Eye Candy and Buzzwords for the Tragically Hip
Review:
Nathan Shedroff has a distinguished, long (in web years) design career behind him. Despite this, his current book does not contribute enough innovation or depth to make it a valuable addition to the designer's library,although it does succeed somewhat as a coffee table volume. Experience Design 1 is filled with the kind of angry-fruit-salad eye-candy that many twenty-something designers find irresistible, but which frequently presents obstacles to actual use. Shedroff imposes no overriding organization scheme that might help the reader navigate the contents, except for the three-dimensional taxonomy node map on the cover. The format lends itself to idle skimming, with seemingly disconnected topics, germane to the concept of designing experience, dominating each pair of facing pages.
According to the author, the book balances online experiences with so-called "real-world" experiences (although to me, some of the contrasts within these dichotomies are somewhat questionable -- for example, is a print magazine somehow more "real" than an online magazine? Is the Apple Desktop more "offline" than a web site when both are computer interfaces?) The text is mostly reverse printed over the book's arresting graphics, which are bleed-printed in full color on glossy stock. Poor binding, which obscures some of the printed text, flaws the overall presentation. Still, the collection of images and ideas may well be inspiring to a tired artist looking for new design approaches.
The book surfs lightly over the surfaces of experience design, never achieving genuine insight in any topic area. The point of view and voice of the book meanders as well: sometimes Shedroff conveys his perspective in an authentically personal voice, while at other times, he lectures the reader ex-cathedra. It's not clear whether the quick switches of positioning are intentionally postmodern or are simply the result of poor craftsmanship, but the end result is a bit bewildering for the reader.
Shedroff is at his best when he lets his images speak for him, especially those that evoke offline experiences -- such as dining in a restaurant, visiting the Louvre, or attending a Burmese tea party. The text with which he decorates his images, however, is derivative and somewhat awkward, with only a few insightful gems (mostly quotes) scattered throughout. Worst of all, lacking real structure or any attempt at a conclusion, the book fails to practice or integrate the messages that are manifested within it.
All in all, this book comes across as a throwback to Wired Magazine's glory days, when style dominated functionality and substance. This approach falls flat in today's frugal economic atmosphere. The visually inclined might find the book to be a source of inspiration, but those looking for a handle on designing experience (online or off) would be better served by reading Brenda Laurel's Computers as Theater or by spending the day exploring an actual theme park than by reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: your dinner party friends will be impressed
Review: despite the fact that nathan shedroff is very capable of producing very engaging experiences on and offline, this is not one of them. all the topics are there, but how in the world could one be expected to be able to read through this book and gain insight into the process of developing the works shown within the pages? if you are interested in impressing your friends by making them think you follow the scattered flow of this visually impressive book then by all means, go right ahead. i might have a used one you can buy.
Rating:
Summary: your dinner party friends will be impressed
Review: despite the fact that nathan shedroff is very capable of producing very engaging experiences on and offline, this is not one of them. all the topics are there, but how in the world could one be expected to be able to read through this book and gain insight into the process of developing the works shown within the pages? if you are interested in impressing your friends by making them think you follow the scattered flow of this visually impressive book then by all means, go right ahead. i might have a used one you can buy.
Rating:
Summary: Open Your Mind
Review: Experience Design 1 is a fantastic portal to lead us deeper into the future of our modern world. Those who choose to enter our maturing technical planet should get this book. Keep Experience Design 1 on your desk, put it in your lobby, and give it to your business partners and your friends. Experience Design 1 is a tool to empower your mind. Important issues in this book: Information, Knowledge, Wisdom, Cognitive Models, Multiplicity, Subjectivity, Navigation, Visualization, Consistency, Metaphors, and many more important points for our horizon. Important Websites: Too many to list. The sites displayed are intertwined throughout the issues discussed and provide new and powerful information for the creation, operation, and evolution of your website. The creator of your website must have this book. Overall, this book is beautiful and every page is a wonderful experience. Enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Intro -- Not just for Web Design
Review: Experience Design is a good intro book for designers, especially those interested in interactive media, environmental design, and museum installations. I found it a very helpful "dictionary" of experience terminology, philosophy, and examples (off-line examples too!). It's not a very extensive book, but it will get your mind "juiced", thinking in new ways and taking you in new directions. As I kept reading, I kept wishing it dove deeper into the thinking behind user's individual experience and memory. Nathan makes up for this by having an extensive resource section for further reading. Of special note were the ideas presented in the book on storytelling, the senses, and different cognitive models. Nathan hits you between the eyes with a lot of one-liners too. My favorite that a LOT of designers get wrong: Data is not information. In the end, I've absorbed a lot of the book and plan on "taking it off the shelf" for future projects.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Intro -- Not just for Web Design
Review: Experience Design is a good intro book for designers, especially those interested in interactive media, environmental design, and museum installations. I found it a very helpful "dictionary" of experience terminology, philosophy, and examples (off-line examples too!). It's not a very extensive book, but it will get your mind "juiced", thinking in new ways and taking you in new directions. As I kept reading, I kept wishing it dove deeper into the thinking behind user's individual experience and memory. Nathan makes up for this by having an extensive resource section for further reading. Of special note were the ideas presented in the book on storytelling, the senses, and different cognitive models. Nathan hits you between the eyes with a lot of one-liners too. My favorite that a LOT of designers get wrong: Data is not information. In the end, I've absorbed a lot of the book and plan on "taking it off the shelf" for future projects.
Rating:
Summary: Breadth of Experiences
Review: Experience Design is a high-level view of how experiences are molded and shaped for those that interact with the constructed place. This book is not a how-to book, but a broad expanse of how things are constructed for interaction/experience. The high-level views that Shedroff provides offer starting points for understanding, not the endpoints for understanding. The book provides a jumping off point for experience design, by showing examples and briefly commenting, why the example is used. This seems like a picture book showing results of those that read and practice what is learned in "Information Design" (a collection of essays, ISBN 0-262-10069-X), among other other great resources found in the resources section of Shedroff's book.
|
