“Digital Experience Design: Ideas, Industries, Interaction” – book review

I had the luck of running into this book by accident. It managed to draw my attention mainly because it was a newly published book (February 4, 2009) compared to other books that discuss the web-design industry and user experiences.

The editor and author of some of the chapters, Linda Leung (a senior lecturer at the Institute for Interactive Media and Learning, University of Technology, Sydney) worked on this book for 3 years before publishing it this winter. As she describes it, this is not a ‘how-to’ book, but rather a ‘what might’ book.

Web design is the main subject of this book. Conceptual in nature, it engages the reader to think outside the technical needs of a project and focuses on finding inspiration in other fields. Creating value by incorporating alternative ideas from academic and industrial contexts, how feminism contributes to interface design, what film makers can teach us about story development, how accessible web-sites fail for people with intellectual disabilities, education, arts and even fashion.

It is a rather challenging read for a book of only 130 pages. I thought I’ll read it in a few hours, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Each chapter guides you towards uncharted territory, opening new possibilities for the world of web design. I had to have a pen and paper next to me all the time to write down the large number of ideas that surfaced just by reading this book.

This book has left a mark on how I’ll see the world wide web and I have a feeling I’ll come back to it again and again. Definitely something worth keeping in one’s library.

If you’re interested the book is available through Intellect Books and Amazon

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