Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design

Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design

by Bill Buxton
Released July 2010
Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN: 9780080552903

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Book description

Sketching User Experiences approaches design and design thinking as something distinct that needs to be better understood—by both designers and the people with whom they need to work— in order to achieve success with new products and systems. So while the focus is on design, the approach is holistic. Hence, the book speaks to designers, usability specialists, the HCI community, product managers, and business executives. There is an emphasis on balancing the back-end concern with usability and engineering excellence (getting the design right) with an up-front investment in sketching and ideation (getting the right design). Overall, the objective is to build the notion of informed design: molding emerging technology into a form that serves our society and reflects its values.

Grounded in both practice and scientific research, Bill Buxton’s engaging work aims to spark the imagination while encouraging the use of new techniques, breathing new life into user experience design.

  • Covers sketching and early prototyping design methods suitable for dynamic product capabilities: cell phones that communicate with each other and other embedded systems, "smart" appliances, and things you only imagine in your dreams
  • Thorough coverage of the design sketching method which helps easily build experience prototypes—without the effort of engineering prototypes which are difficult to abandon
  • Reaches out to a range of designers, including user interface designers, industrial designers, software engineers, usability engineers, product managers, and others
  • Full of case studies, examples, exercises, and projects, and access to video clips that demonstrate the principles and methods

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Preface
  6. Acknowledgements
  7. Author’s Note
  8. Table of Contents
  9. Part I: Design as Dreamcatcher
    1. Chapter 1: Design for the Wild
    2. Chapter 2: Case Study
    3. Chapter 3: The Bossy Rule
    4. Chapter 4: A Snapshot of Today
    5. Chapter 5: The Role of Design
    6. Chapter 6: A Sketch of the Process
    7. Chapter 7: The Cycle of Innovation
    8. Chapter 8: The Question of Design
    9. Chapter 9: The Anatomy of Sketching
    10. Chapter 10: Clarity is not Always the Path to Enlightment
    11. Chapter 11: The Larger Family of Renderings
    12. Chapter 12: Experience Design vs. Interface Design
    13. Chapter 13: Sketching Interaction
    14. Chapter 14: Sketches are not Prototypes
    15. Chapter 15: Where Is the User in All of This?
    16. Chapter 16: You Make That Sound Like a Negative Thing
    17. Chapter 17: If Someone Made a Sketch in the Forest and Nobody Saw It…
    18. Chapter 18: The Object of Sharing
    19. Chapter 19: Annotation
    20. Chapter 20: Design Thinking and Ecology
    21. Chapter 21: The Second Worst Thing That Can Happen
    22. Chapter 22: A River Runs Through It
  10. Part II: Stories of Methods and Madness
    1. Chapter 23: From Thinking On to Acting On
    2. Chapter 24: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
    3. Chapter 25: Chameleon
    4. Chapter 26: Le Bricolage
    5. Chapter 27: It was a Dark and Stormy Night…
    6. Chapter 28: Visual Storytelling
    7. Chapter 29: Simple Animation
    8. Chapter 30: Shoot the Mime
    9. Chapter 31: Sketch-A-Move
    10. Chapter 32: Extending Interaction
    11. Chapter 33: The Bifocal Display
    12. Chapter 34: Video Envisionment
    13. Chapter 35: Interacting with Paper
    14. Chapter 36: Are You Talking to Me?
    15. Chapter 37: Some Final Thoughts
  11. References and Bibliography
  12. Index

Product information

  • Title: Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design
  • Author(s): Bill Buxton
  • Release date: July 2010
  • Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
  • ISBN: 9780080552903