Customer Reviews

Experience Design

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

Experience Design was exactly what its title says. The book is full of pictures that can be found on the Internet, talks about what the author believes is the right way and wrong way to do a web site and avoids using any graphical demonstration of techniques. The book is a novelette on design pictures. It is all reading and no walk-though examples. The print is small and hard to read because it is placed over busy backgrounds.

While the color pages are beautiful, there is not CD provided for studying or trying out techniques. the $45.00 price tag is a bit steep. There are other books on the market that provide better help for a designer looking for how-tos and suggestion on what to use on the web sites they are creating.

I bought this book and love it! This book reminds me alot of the work done by Buckminster Fuller, Paulo Soleri and other visionaries like George Lakoff ("Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things") Rosalind Picard ("Affective Computing") and all of the Edward Tufte's work. This guy is onto something big--a field that is new and getting bigger every day--experience design. Either you get it or you don't. If you are a geek looking for a book on how to handle digital artifacts that you can't feather in Photoshop 6.0 and want techo help, don't buy this book. Go to a hardware store. There are 10,000 titles out there that can help you. This book is unique--it's about experience design.... However, I think alot of nuts and bolts web designers and developers will benefit enormously from reading this book.

When Marshall McCluhan wrote "Understanding Media" most people didn't get it and it seems that the same is true of some of the reviews on this site. By way of background, I am extremely biased and have been a Nathan fan as are a bunch of other people much more notable than me--major design gurus like Clement Mok, Richard Saul Wurman (who once described Nathan as a prodigy) and a host of others. Nathan's web work (as well as his other design work in other media) is legendary in the industry. Remember the cover of one of the early "Wired" magazine issues that spoke glowingly about the "Johnny Mneumonic" web hunt? Guess who invented that? Nathan. That is experience design. The Windows 95 Product Release site where you could download new product and was the heaviest hit site in history the day it went up? Nathan. That's experience design. The interactive "build your own bank" experience at Bank of America in 1995? That's experience design. Nathan. Point made.

As I read it,this book is intended to get at the underlying design principles of an emerging field that Nathan and his colleagues call "experience design." It drives everything. This is an incredible book that lays out the foundation theory of interactive experience design and then provides the reader with an incredible assortment of experiences which are catalogued very systematically for the reader. You have to get off your butt and interact with them, not just read about them in the book--that's the point. For example, if you read "Experience Design" and go see "De La Guarda" -pages 292, you will discover that it is a theatical experience not a web site (as one reviewer claims)! And if you go to "De La Guarda," as I did on Nathan's recommendation, you will have your mind blown and learn new things about how information can be presented in 3 dimensional space with audience interaction. Take "Cirque du Soleil" on pages 128-129. The book lays out a new view of why this works. Try buying a chair... which is described on pp. 76-77. Read why the site works in the book, try the site and then you will know why so many B2C sites have hit the wall and failed but could be great like this one is. But you need to interact. Oh yeah, Nathan helped design the site. This book isn't theory, it is a catalog of interactive experiences with a set of design principles throughout that you can use. Buy this book and keep it near by at all times.

The book was as confused as it was loaded with visual eye candy. The most pressing need for visual experience designers is knowing when to make information speak for itself and live on its own. It doesn't need to be fancy or dressed up like a overdone light show at a rock concert. Please, more substance.

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.

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.

shedroff doesnt spell out formulas. he provides inspiration.

in a world where there isn't a lot of fresh thinking going on (let's consider the referential work of insecure writers who "quotily" hang on the coat-tails of popular authors) shedroff is willing to say what he believes. he is ambitious and draws from a wide range of subjects, presenting a massive spread of ideas that demand his readers concentrate and consider. and as with any experience, the book isnt a separated set of logic, but a smear, which considers all things together, as one. its a generalized approach to thinking, not particulate. this means its about art, not logic.

in the end, shedroff has written an excellent book that provides doors to new ideas. if you want to be told how to think and what to do, look elsewhere. if you want a book that gives you options, Experience Design does it.

... 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.

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.

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.