Reviews: Book Reviews

One thing we can count on is that the quantity of information is increasing over time. The prevalence of information, its relationship to knowledge, and its impact on people’s decision-making faculties is becoming a more central concern for UX professionals.

Richard Saul Wurman, the author of Information Anxiety, is a trained architect, a very prolific writer, the founder of the TED conference, and a well-known public speaker. Although he wrote this book 30 years ago, the ideas it presents are just as relevant today as they were then, perhaps more so. It’s a credit to the solidity of his thinking that many of his concepts seem to predict the world in which we live today. Read More

Design thinking. It’s probably something you use in your job every day to tackle thorny design problems. But have you ever thought about using it to design your life?

In their book, Designing Your Life, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans outline a step-by-step process, using design thinking, to help people build lives in which they can find fulfillment and joy. This review highlights some techniques from the book that people have used successfully in achieving their professional and career objectives. To get a complete understanding of the Life Design process, though, you need to read the book. Read More

Author: Jenifer Tidwell

Publisher: O’Reilly Media

Publication date: November 2005

Format: Paperback; 9.7 x 7.9 x 0.7 inches; 331 pages

ISBN: 0596008031

List price: $49.95

Overview

I must admit that I am not a fan of pattern books in general—especially in the field of design. I’ve always felt they are excellent sources of inspiration if you’re crafting a quilt or stenciling a wainscot for your living room, but for more involved design activities, I’ve concluded they are too simplistic—perhaps even limiting. I suspect this opinion was informed by my architecture professor’s intensely negative reaction to Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language and A Timeless Way of Building when they were first published. Years later, when I learned that software engineers were enamored of Alexander’s books, and the emergence of software patterns had its basis in Alexander’s notion of design patterns, I was bemused and skeptical. Read More