I finished “Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design“
last week in preparation for the upcoming UX Austin Book Club meeting.
It’s 400+ pages, but a rather easy read. The book covers a range of topics, including:
- The value of good design.
- Good design only happens when designers understand the context of use, and explore many possible solutions.
- Sketching allows designers (and potential customers) to explore ideas at low cost.
- Sharing sketches enables early feedback.
- Techniques for sketching interactivity.
- Sketching can involve computers, cameras, and smoke-and-mirrors provided that it remain quick, inexpensive, disposable, etc.
- There are many examples of quality sketching available in the archives of HCI history, and replicating these experiments is good practice for a budding interaction designer.
My opinions on the book are mixed. It definitely offers positive motivation for sketching — and some great stories to feed those “why are we drawing pictures instead of coding” conversations that come up all-to-often with clients unfamiliar with UX Design. However, the book does come across a little passive, yet arrogant at times, while making numerous references without context. This gives it a somewhat academic feel, reading more like a light-weight thesis than a typical design book. That said, if you work in UX Design, being familiar with the ideas in this book will go a long way toward helping your career.
While reading, I highlighted a few quotes, which I’ll list out below. I grabbed these not because they represent the theme of the book, per se, but because they had unique meaning to me, or something I’m working on. (For example, I’ve already used one of the quotes below in a presentation on the design process.)
Quotes:
“In order to design a tool, we must make our best efforts to understand the larger social and physical context within which it is intended to function.”
This is a classic UX/HCI principle of understanding the user and their context for interaction as a design constraint/criteria. It’s a basic requirement in designing a product/solution that delivers value to a customer.
This next quote is an interesting one for companies thinking that they can solve “design” simply by hiring a few designers:
“It does not matter if you already have the talent to save your company among your current employees. If you do not have the vision, will, and power at the highest level, then that talent is almost certain to remain as wasted as it is frustrated.”
Becoming a design company isn’t as easy as hiring designers (just like becoming an innovative company cannot happen simply by filling the ranks with a few smart people.) Companies can only lead the pack when these values go all the way to the top. Until that happens, organizational practices (and politics) will keep those talented stars from shaping the companies’future.
This one’s fantastic (and the one I used in a presentation):
“Even if you do a brilliant job of building what you originally set out to build, if it is the wrong product, it still constitutes a failure.”
Meaning, that even if your company can execute a product vision perfectly (ie., you have great developers/craftsmen/etc.), you’re still wasting your time, and money, if you haven’t validated that your concepts will provide the market value you’re trying to achieve.
On the reason it’s important to share all ideas when brainstorming:
“…better idea[s] would never have come about were it not for the idea that it replaces.”
In other words, even bad ideas provide value via the thinking that occurs when we consider them.
On team dynamics and the work environment:
“A healthy team is made up of people who have the attitude that it is better to learn something new than to be right.”
“A design studio without ample space to pin up sketches, reference photos, clippings, and the like,… is as likely to be successful as an empty dance club.”
And finally, a reminder on why you never skip peer reviews:
“It is better to have your preliminary work critiqued by your colleagues while there is still time to do something about it — no matter how difficult the criticism might be — than to have the finished project torn apart by strangers in public.”
