Everyday Engineering: What Engineers See [Paperback]

IDEO (Author), Andrew Burroughs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2007

World-renowned design and innovation firm IDEO uses first-hand observations to inform and inspire its work. As it did with the groundbreaking observational primer Thoughtless Acts?, IDEO once again brings its instructive methods tobear on the world around us, this time with an eye toward the inherent but unheralded presence of modern engineering. By observing the built environment we walk through every daythe often-overlooked details of buildings and roads, the joinings and interfaces of our infrastructurewe can learn to see the world as engineers do, and adapt this perspective to critical thinking. Through simple pictures of how objects and environments behave over time, Everyday Engineering invites anyone in creative fields, business, and design to see the world through IDEO's eyes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andrew Burroughs has been a consulting design engineer for twenty years-fifteen of those with IDEO, arguably the foremost design and innovation consultancy in the world. Since 2004, Andrew has led IDEO's Chicago office. IDEO uses first-hand observations to inform and inspire the design of delightful and useful products, services, and environments.

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (September 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081186054X
• ISBN-13: 978-0811860543
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,016,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great idea, embarassing execution, December 10, 2007

By 

Andrew Otwell "heyotwell" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Everyday Engineering: What Engineers See (Paperback)

"Thinking like an engineer" is a great idea for a book for designers, especially one that could encourage and develop methods of collaboration or cross-fertilization. This silly book--more of a pamphlet, really--is an utterly trivial effort. It's designer vanity publishing at its worst, a short pretty picture book for IDEO's clients to flip through in the reception area while waiting for the meeting.

The problem is that "broken things" look equally broken to everyone. An engineer might see a problem as a stress or tensile failure, or too much weight applied to a surface, or a failed gasket. A designer might see failures of clarity, accessibility, or aesthetic appeal. But a picture of a rusty pipe is pretty much just that, and it's not instructive on its own. (By the way, use Amazon's "Search inside the book" feature to read the entire book using its clever index, which reproduces every image at thumbnail size with a helpful caption.)

And if you want even more pictures of broken things, try the "thisisbroken" tag on Flickr for an endless stream of them.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I'll sell you mine, December 7, 2007

By 

P. Doncaster "Petiedons" (Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everyday Engineering: What Engineers See (Paperback)

I was hoping for something insightful and educational. It turns out to be a picture book of design flaws that were never designed; rusty pipes, leaky faucets, etc. The text does not redeem, in any kind of instructional manner, what is essentially a foto album. With IDEO credited as an author, I was expecting much more insight into the design process.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Useless - not sure what they were trying to do, June 10, 2008

By 

MJS (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Everyday Engineering: What Engineers See (Paperback)

The book is quite small in size - smaller than a paperback novel. Each chapter starts with a page of text and then the rest of the chapter is pictures with no text. Not sure what they were trying to accomplish. If you look at the index page in the Amazon "look inside" feature, you have seen most of the book. To me this exactly the kind of thing that makes people suspicious of "creative types" - all form and no substance.