Good high level discussion of Design Principles.
345566
Review is for both the Kindle and hardcover versions of this book.

An easy to use, high level reference of various design principles. A good reference for students, designers, user interface experts or anyone involved in creating, maintaining or managing a product. The language is concise, the principles are presented in an easy to understand manner.

Each principle is summed up at the highest level in the subtitle with a more detailed description in the body. A list of related principles is included and in some instances visual aids. Footnotes are at the bottom of each section.

The hardcover is an attractive book with the blue spine being a glossy finish and the white part being matt. The paper is a medium weight with a nice feel and a matt finish.

The Kindle version faithfully follows the book but has the added benefit that e-books have such as search, contents viewable alongside page views, bookmarks, highlights, links, notes etc. which of course makes it much more effective as a reference.

I generally use the Kindle version more often on my laptop where the reader is in color and there is greater viewing space for graphics. When reading it on the Kindle Paperwhite the experience is still enjoyable but not to the same level.

Pros:
- Covers a wide range of design principles
- Information is presented in an effective way
- Text is concise and clearly written
- Related principles are presented for further study
- Graphics are informative and directly demonstrate the principle
- Hardcover is attractive and has a nice feel to it

Cons:
- For the hardcover there could be a quicker way to look up principles. The contents do a good job however something like tabs might help for quicker reference without having to return to the contents page
- For the Kindle version, the graphics and illustrations often fall well below the text and so lose some of the effectiveness they have in the hardcover edition where they are easily viewed alongside the text.
4974229
This is an odd but fascinating book about the business of industrial design in 1930-50's US. It promotes a perspective to design which later generations know as human-centered design. It does not talk about user experience, usability, innovation or design thinking with the terms we have for them today, but it surely gives an interesting perspective for a 21st century reader on the past thinking on these topics.

An interesting comparison is contrast Designing for People to Tim Brown's&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Change-by-Design-How-Design-Thinking-Transforms-Organizations-and-Inspires-Innovation/dp/0061766089/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation</a>&nbsp;released 54 years after. It seems reasonable to ask if the field of design has developed at all, maybe except for branding. It seems that the office of Dreyfuss was essentially practicing all methods under the mindset of "design thinking" Brown presented as the holy grail of organizational innovation.

The book holds a quite detailed account of the operation of Henry Dreyfuss and one might call it an autobiography. Biography in a form of a vitae and an industrial design business cook book. This is also the problem of the tome. At best, it provides insights and details, reports from the past which would be otherwise unattainable. At worst, it reads out as a (poorly) guided tour to a trophy room. A short story after short story in an identical format, describing yet another Dreyfuss victory in some exotic field of design. This is emphasized by the result-oriented style of the narrator, which always describes the glorious outcome of the design process, where as the process receives less attention.

The biggest problem I, as a design scholar, have with the book is about the rather mystified design process view. Although Dreyfuss does provide a lot of examples on how they as a design agency repeatedly used research, prototyping and some intuition to solve even the toughest problems, there is awfully lot missing. Even though chapter 15 does document some humoristic irks on the detail level, there is not much talk about failures, temporary set backs or the confusion usually associated with a creative process. Much of the success ends up being attributable to character of the designer(s). Designers appear as god like infallible creatures capable to undertaking and overtaking any design task better than the client company they are hired for. And the writer is very clearly depicting himself as one such uomo universal for instance in his description of transforming McCall's magazine. I'm exaggerating, but bothers me most is the complete credit for the mutual efforts of design company personnel.

I hate to say it but this book fails to give any real credit to a great number of people who must be responsible for the great achievements of Mr. Dreyfuss. Coming back to 21st century, for the defense of Mr. Brown and his fellow IDEOans, they do acknowledge the team performance making design possible. It is not just whoever and however that the visions of design can be harmonized and executed successfully, there is an appropriate combination of the right type of skills and personalities needed at the job. Of course, the prototyping techniques introduced in Dreyfuss' book and their modern equivalents are important but they are not the only source of magic.

I recommend this book for post-modern reader with an interest in the history of design business. It gives a nice modernist view on design, one which is surprisingly timely in our post-modern times. It provokes lot of thought, in good and bad. The prophecies and war stories of Dreyfuss can be boring, but there is lot of very practical information here and there to be found, making it a mostly pleasant reading.
4288224
Marc Silver's extensive experience in designing user interfaces is evident in this highly readable book. The numerous tips scattered throughout offer easy take-away value and the text gives you the "why" as well as the "how" of designing user interfaces. This approach will give you a foundation for design discussions with others involved in the software and web site development process including clients, project managers, programmers, quality assurance and support personnel.

 As a practicing software development professional, I found the chapter on Designing for Accessibility particularly relevant to current Section 508 compliance issues with our clients (textbook publishers). There are also numerous design practices that we use in our daily work that are explained in the Specifying the Design chapter. The nuts-and-bolts of using the various interface elements are well covered in the Menus and Controls and Designing Usable Navigation chapters. Consistent with a real-world view, there are few absolute rules, but instead intelligent discussion of the trade-offs involved in making design decisions.

 Although you'll want to have a more complete reference for starting a business, the final chapter on the User Interface Designer in Professional Practice provides helpful advice and tips on subjects such as proposal writing, maintaining long-term business relationships, and even filing practices.

 You'll find this book very useful if you're a student looking for practical advice on user interface design in the real world. If you're a practicing professional you'll pick up some valuable tips that you'll use regularly in your work.
4915942
I read six books on software security recently, namely "Writing Secure Code, 2nd Ed" by Michael Howard and David LeBlanc; "19 Deadly Sins of Software Security" by Michael Howard, David LeBlanc, and John Viega; "Software Security" by Gary McGraw; "The Security Development Lifecycle" by Michael Howard and Steve Lipner; "High-Assurance Design" by Cliff Berg; and "Security Patterns" by Markus Schumacher, et al.  Each book takes a different approach to the software security problem, although the first two focus on coding bugs and flaws; the second two examine development processes; and the last two discuss practices or patterns for improved design and implementation.  My favorite of the six is Gary McGraw's, thanks to his clear thinking and logical analysis.  The other five are still noteworthy books.  All six will contribute to the production of more security software.

"High-Assurance Design" (HAD) is the sort of book one should read when sitting down to design decently complex applications.  It's not a network architecture book, so you won't read about using router ACLs, firewalls, and host IPS for "defense in depth."  Rather, the author is trying to teach what he calls "intrusion-aware design" (p 88).  The book contains some real gems, like this principle on p 78: "A system cannot be said to be secure if the design of the actual system cannot be articulated."  That is exceptionally accurate.  The author explains how developers should "design for verifiability," which really applies to anyone building a complex system.  I also bought the idea that reliability is the parent concept, with security as part of reliability (ch 2).

For a person who doesn't develop software professionally, I found all of those concepts to be very powerful and helpful.  Programmers, especially Java and object-oriented types like Cliff Berg, will probably really enjoy later chapters in HAD like ch 7.  (It was too much for me.)  In some cases, however, I questioned the utility of the principles in these later sections.  For example, p 301 offers this gem: "Run securely."  No kidding!  This and other non-actionable (or non-demonstrated) principles resulted in my offering four stars instead of five.  The author is also a big agile programming fan, especially liking Extreme Programming (XP).  XP, however, seems antithetical to many of his recommendations.  His attempts to square this circle didn't really convince me, although certain aspects of XP are definitely compelling.

I recommend reading HAD to benefit from the wonderful insights found in the first half of the book.  You'll find that apply very well to multiple security problem sets -- not just secure software development.
1704740
This is NOT a book for people looking to learn SQL, or some other dialect of a database.  It is a data centric design book on the low level parts of those database engines you currently use.

Did you ever wonder WHY heap files and B-Tree files are used in databases?  This is the book to give you the why behind a lot of the lower level design decisions in databases today.

I enjoyed the why discussion of almost all of the topics, but it left me feeling a little light on the implementation.  There is not much in the way of practical discussion in the book.  While a discussion about index types is very well thought out it never completes the thought from an implementation standpoint.  I was actually left with a lot more questions to low level implementation than I started.  When to use one of these algorithms is totally left as an excercise to the reader.  And in many cases the actual algorithm itself is also left to you to research.  I guess they are outside the scope of the book, but I would have enjoyed it so much more with some simple pseudocode or a sample project concept to put them to use.

The book is a great reference to get you thinking about the lowest level of database implementation and make you really think about the way in which SQL Server, DB2, etc all work.  But you are not left with a lot of substance on why one implementation would be better than the other for your specific application or problem domain.
3383895
Logo Design Love by David Airey is a welcome addition to my newly budding collection of design books.

Previously, I had bought another logo book that included ample examples of logos with wholly unrelated text and spatters of quotes, meant to stimulate speculation as opposed to provide instruction.  Conversely, Airey's book provided text that was engaging, sequential, and meaningful in addition to providing some stellar pictorial examples of state-of-the-art logos.  Airey's choice of logos used mostly artistic typeface, but were none the less brilliant, while the book itself flowed in a friendly manner.

Although well over 45% of the book covers the business aspects of design, such as the how-to of presenting and leading design projects to clients, David Airey wrote these sections as if he were writing a letter to a dear friend.  Indeed, Airey's warm tone of voice made the business components inviting, irrespective of how much background the reader might already have with presenting deliverables to the client.

With that said, the highlights of the book for me included the following:

1. The chapter providing brainstorming/mind mapping techniques for coming up with various words associated to general themes or concepts surrounding the company.

2. The multitude of examples of the evolving sketches that comprised a fundamental part of the design process.

3. The instruction on how to make a compelling logo design, including such advice as keeping it simple, singularly focused, and black-and-white (for the initial concept).

4. The amazing examples of state-of-the-art logo designs, including snippets of proposed design(s) along with the client approved design.

5. The straightforward advice on using Illustrator or vector graphic software for logo design and on using Photoshop for  showing the logos on various media, such as business cards, the side of a truck, and so forth.

Although Airey's book can be read in a matter of days, it provides a wide breadth of information on the design process, most notably written as if intended to be read by a beloved friend.

(A recommended book for designers to purchase in addition to Logo Design Love is called Design Basics Index by Jim Krause.  Krause's book is often used in design courses as it provides great instructional depth on the basics of design, including logo design.)
3422831
I'm a college student majoring in interactive media and I bought this book for independent study. My degree courses often deal with specific aspects or applications of design, but I wanted to gain a better understanding of general design principles. I am happy to report that this book is rich with design information that can be utilized by all species of designers!

Each topic is given two pages - one page is more text-heavy and the other has visuals that demonstrate or exemplify the design principle at hand. Despite the seemingly brief dedication to each principle, the book is dense, efficient, and favors minimalism so although you may be able to scan over a principle in seconds, you need to take the time and study the information being presented in order to soak all of it in. Lidwell does a fantastic job at providing a survey of some of the most pertinent design principles. I foresee referencing this book throughout the rest of university studies and beyond.
1050942
It would be unlikely to find this level of expertise in the fundamentals of 3-D design even on the university level. Professionals will appreciate it if within their area of interest, but all right-brained thinkers would find this an easy means of grasping the mathematical laws governing the basics of formal 3-D design (not an easy thing to do.) This of course, provides the springboard for the elegant inspiration the book illustrates.

 I find this book a valuable and significant resource for my library, and look forward to reading Wong's other publications. Thank you.
4163423
This book is great with a lot of pictures, but also adequate text explaining design strategies and techniques used. It also includes floor plans of the spaces which designers can appreciate. Great book!
16308
A very suitable book for Architecture and design. It opens your mind in a critical way and makes you think projects from more than one aspect.
4888103
A great technical book.  Not for those looking for design stimulation.
3172827
What I really liked about this book is the way in which we can view a product. Whether its a light switch, suitcase or kitchen utensil. It all comes down to how well it functions. The User (you and I) subject the items we buy to a battery of usability tests, whether intentionally or not, and basically determine how well they cooperate. This book brings out those questions in advance to make smarter purchases and to be aware of how well designed the item is. If an item does not perform to what it should do, even on the most basic level, then clearly the designers did not have functionality, or in this case, "Usability" in mind.

I recall the age old argument of "form versus function". Function, as mentioned, is how well the item can be used in its bare state. Form, on the other hand, is now "pretty" the item is. Apple products have exceeded most people's expectations because they not only perform well, but also are fashionable to the eye and touch. So they have both areas covered. Philosophically they say that men prefer function while women prefer form. While that issue is not addressed in this book, I find it an interesting argument.

But this book is not much of a philosophical argument so much as a practical one. Does a pan sit on your stove or does the handle out weigh the pan?

The questions he does pose refer to products and product designers in regards to comfort in the hand, easy to read information, packaging, and durability. All of this collapses into the usability quotient. The author clearly knows his work and enjoys what he does as the reading is easy and friendly.

My contention with the book, however, is the large emphasis on web design. While web pages certainly can be scrutinized in the same way, I felt as if all of the knowledge one puts to physical objects are to be converted to the digital frame work. I would be more interested in keeping with physical products. Even though this book is published by Wiley, which is basically a computer programming publisher, the web aspect to me was a bit uninteresting.

But that aside, I felt the book is a really interesting look at things we generally take for granted. And if you want to be more conscious about your relationship with the products around you, this is a great book to get you thinking about them.
212541
As I get older, I begin to see that designing is really about seeing, hearing, thinking and understanding at a higher level. If you're looking for an easy how-to for making your website or product punchier, this isn't for you. For me, the book was a perfect read. I am always hunting and gathering for the meaning of art and design, to push my own work forward, and to gain an advantage over my competitors in terms of design. Thus, Norman's book was right up my alley. His deconstruction of design into its visceral, behavioral and reflective aspects was powerful and compelling, and I believe this book is actually a manifesto that will eventually launch a new school of thought in design. The second half of the book delves into even more complex and forward-thinking issues, and I found it useful for FORCING myself to read and think out of the box. It's an absolute must-have book for anyone interested in understanding the structure of the new design revolution and transforming their perspective on the art of designing at an emotional level.
2932021
The book is a little verbose in some parts but I'll take extra information over missing information any day. It serves as an end-to-end look into the level of thinking that goes into well-designed objects.

I already spend life looking through the eyes of a designer, but now I have a bit more vocabulary and concrete knowledge into why things function in the way they do.
779874
I'm about half way through this book, but I wanted to share my impressions so far. I'm not an architect, but I wish I had had this book when we had a house designed by one for us. It's not exactly a primer or comprehensive overview of architecture, but rather a series of thought-provoking demonstrations of concepts. Other reviewers are correct to say that the illustrations don't match the text, but I found if I thought a little, then I saw the connection between illustration and text, and as a result I learned more and understood better.

That said, this is not a book to pick up and read through. I found that about a page a day suited me, no faster. So it's a great book for you-know-where.
4735609
This book gives a good coverage of digital design. It includes:
The basics (binary, octal and hexadecimal numbers, two's complement); boolean algebra and its relationship to logic gates; symplification of Boolean  functions and NAND/NOR implementation; adders (half, full, carry lookahead,  parity generation) and encoders/decoders; PLD's; synchronous design: state  machines, counters, shift registers; asynchronous design (race conditions,  hazards), characteristics of digital integrated circuits (TTL, ECL, CMOS)  and a bunch of proposed lab experiments.
I found the book to be plenty of  information relative to its size. The issues are presented clearly, and I  didn't find any bugs in the book. Some of the data presented (like  asynchronous design) are difficult to find in other reference  books.
However, I was not sure if it deserved the 5 stars. The book  doesn't cover today's  hot issues like low voltage families (3.3V and  below), and it also does not have any reference to HDL (Verilog, VHDL). The  presented PLD's and logic families are today almost obsolete.
But all in  all, it is an excelente reference on digital design.
1528810
Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity

by Alan Cooper, SAMS, 1999

Cooper wanted to provide with this book a business case for improved UI design. He wanted to make a case that there was a strong need for improved interaction design. The case no doubt stands as strong today as 10 years ago. While one sees progress at leading companies in terms of usability, the sheer abundance and explosion of human/computer interaction has no doubt caused the friction and frustration with poorly designed interfaces to increase rather  than decrease.

Cooper has also written "how-to" books on interaction design:  "About Face" in which he describes the techniques to come to good "interaction" design. If you're looking for techniques, it is no doubt more worthwhile to investigate "About Face".

In the "Inmates", Cooper raises several very worthwhile insights and approaches. Professionals in the industry will definitely connect with the messages and follow Cooper's reasoning. Design will reduce the number of iterations needed to come to a good product, and will reduce your overall time and cost needed. We know this, but do not necessarily do this in all projects. Which is why Cooper advocates the strong integration of design in your culture and processes. And why he wrote the book in the first place.

Yet, at the same time, Cooper's tone and stance towards engineers and programmers could easily be seen as alienating and by some even as arrogant. Which, in the end, somewhat diminishes the goal of the book. The goal after all is to influence the professional software community, existing mostly out of engineers and programmers. In my summary, I left out most of these comments when Cooper gets somewhat carried away about how software engineers are wired differently ('homo logicus').

In the end, it is a light and easy-to-read, often amusing book which is making a good case for the strongly-needed discipline of design. If you're not familiar with the topic, it is no doubt worth your time.

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