Foreword

Designing the human-facing behavior of software-powered systems is a relatively new discipline. As any new discipline develops, even its own practitioners are unaware of its ultimate scope, and the breadth of expertise its application requires often comes as a surprise even to its most skilled experts. It certainly surprised me to see just how deep the craft really went as we explored it. The depth of knowledge and the extent of method required is significant, and it truly represents a unique discipline of some magnitude.

This book is the first I've ever read that covers the entire spectrum of interaction design practice as a craft, including visual design and industrial design. While interaction design is a wholly new discipline, visual and industrial design are older, pre-existing fields that have been wholly transformed by digital technology. All three are given full consideration here. Others have written scholarly work on the theoretical underpinnings of software behavior, or described the visually aesthetic component of the field. Some others have attempted to cover the entire ground, but at one point or another, all of them take leaps of faith, exhorting the budding practitioner to "be creative" or "make it easy to use."

But practitioners need to know how to make it easy to use, and how to be creative. Gaining mastery of these tiny, creative steps is precisely the sticking point that leaves the student of interaction design unable to proceed. Kim's comprehensive book ...

Get Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.