Steven Pemberton (Editor in chief Interactions Magazine)
It is great that Lon Barfield has collected the columns and added to them to create this book.
Book Description
Ten years ago the author started writing the popular Real World column for the SIGCHI bulletin (the ACM magazine for interaction designers). It was a column observing everyday interactions in both real and digital environments.
This book contains fifty of those columns, covering such fundamental topics as:
Switching things on and off
Choosing correct terminology for interfaces
Volume controls
Annoying sounds coming from alarm-clocks
Making the ideal slice of toast
They have been gathered together, along with extra sections on observing the real world and a number of new columns. The book is both entertaining and enlightening. Lecturers will find it a good supplement to any course dealing with designing for people, while industrial and digital designers can learn from the observations and insights it contains. The content is an inspirational resource for interaction designers, web designers, architects, industrial designers and anybody who has ever said Who on earth designed that?!