Rating: 
Summary: good experience, bad design
Review: This book has wonderful tidbits of information scattered throughout. It definitely made it more enjoyable to read knowing that you do not have an idea of what the next experience is going to be. Every spread is a different taste, a different look and a different feel. The typography is also dispersed randomly throughout the spreads. This is where the book falls short. The content is well thought out whereas the actual design of the book was not. There is no reason for the type to be layed out as poorly as it is. No grid or methodology was established to help the book flow smoothly. Instead, the layout of this book causes a slightly difficult experience in a typograpghic sense. Some pages were skipped over due to illegibility. On a brighter note, the lower credits on the bottom of the pages gave a solid piece of reference which I used a lot. It kept me sitting by the computer during the whole read of this book. Overall, I would recommend this book to any designer or to anyone in any profession not even closely related to design for that matter. The content in this book helps people see the details in everything around us...Again, highly recommended and quick to cruise through with great URL's.
Rating: 
Summary: (Novel, High Level) Experience Design (for the Bay Area)
Review: This book offers a difficult experience, literally. It flops uncomfortably in your hands. Don't try reading this on an airplane or train. Some text disappears into the spine and some is set in white against a grey and white background. Not very friendly. While the linear experience of a book is largely ignored - it's basically a set of narrated web links in book form. All of which wouldn't matter so much, if the author wasn't very consciously trying to "walk the talk" and make the book be an experience, as well as be about designing experiences. Move past the form, and into the function of the book, and you find a tour de horizon of a fascinating subject. If you are a novice to this area, it will help open your mind to the possibilities of constructing experiential environments, giving you lots of space and examples for the succinct messages to sink-in. If you are not a novice, you'll find a fluff of high level messages without detailed analysis and an over concentration on the visual and the novel, and no recognition of global cultural issues in designing world-wide accessible experiences. I wanted more from this book, but can see that for some it would a useful place to start their journey.
Rating: 
Summary: great introduction to web design concepts
Review: This is the best web introductory "design" book I've seen, and I read many web design books, and am generally quite critical on my reviews. I'm a web development specialist with good technology and business background. I'm also one of the "blind" people in the world--see everything, but have very little appreciation for it. The book's large pictures do what the author is aiming for--it forces the reader to reflect on what the pictures is trying to say--emotionally--thus the title "experiencing design". The author then explains the picture's "design concept" and applies this concept for the web. Note that he is explaining the entire design concept, not just "drawing artistic" design--he explains interactivity, visual content management, message. Thus, this book is much more than just a web artistry book. Based on what I've seen of the web, very few designers really understand the concepts the author explains. I've never read a book with quite an unusual format as this. Perhaps that's because I haven't read many art design books. From my limited art design background, I'd say this book carries some degree of genius in introducing web designs. For me, this book was slow reading, because I had to really think through what the author was trying to say. It's a book filled with lots of pretty pictures, but it takes some time to understand what the author is saying.
Rating:
Summary: great introduction to web design concepts
Review: This is the best web introductory "design" book I've seen, and I read many web design books, and am generally quite critical on my reviews. I'm a web development specialist with good technology and business background. I'm also one of the "blind" people in the world--see everything, but have very little appreciation for it. The book's large pictures do what the author is aiming for--it forces the reader to reflect on what the pictures is trying to say--emotionally--thus the title "experiencing design". The author then explains the picture's "design concept" and applies this concept for the web. Note that he is explaining the entire design concept, not just "drawing artistic" design--he explains interactivity, visual content management, message. Thus, this book is much more than just a web artistry book. Based on what I've seen of the web, very few designers really understand the concepts the author explains. I've never read a book with quite an unusual format as this. Perhaps that's because I haven't read many art design books. From my limited art design background, I'd say this book carries some degree of genius in introducing web designs. For me, this book was slow reading, because I had to really think through what the author was trying to say. It's a book filled with lots of pretty pictures, but it takes some time to understand what the author is saying.
Rating: 
Summary: Self indulgent pap
Review: With a back cover description extolling the book's virtues such as "...interaction design, information design, visual design and more related methodologies...", the book misses the mark completely. The book mostly comprises of a collection a screen grabs, arty photos and some of the more avant-garde advertising campaigns (available in a million books elsewhere). The book is so light weight that I challenge anyone to learn anything meaningful from such prosaic descriptions that accompany each example in the book. The following occupied two pages of the book, and was accompanied by such necessary elements as two photographs to demonstrate what a match and matchbox look like; "Matches are about as simple and clear a device as you will find. Of course, they are only half the solution, requiring a suitable surface to strike them against. However, a match's operation has been reduced to a minimum of steps and a minimum of possible mistakes." Thanks.... may I suggest you save your money.
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