The goings on at the UX Book Club Chicago monthly meetings (3/31/10)

April 1st, 2010 Posted by tyler in Design, News, Reviews

If you’re not already familiar with the UX Book Club’s Chicago chapter, let me get you up to speed. It’s a small group of passionate design folks who meet downtown to talk about things in the industry. Such as our jobs, our roll as designers, and what is going on in our professional spheres. We praise each other’s triumphs, as well as bitch about other designers, clients, educators, etc. We also digress into joking about current events, or corporate drug testing, or Battlestar Galactica, or whatever happens to pop up organically throughout the evening. Oh yeah, and there’s books too. Every month a new book (or part of a book) is the intended focus, but the format of the meeting is loose. Generally the book is a jumping off point to socialize and hear some very insightful thoughts from other like-minded people. The casual nature of the meeting diffuses any intimidating situations where a participant might feel as thought they are being ‘tested’ on their knowledge of the material. It’s quite the opposite in fact. You can even come if you haven’t read or finished the book. (All though it is encouraged) Don’t get me wrong, the book is central to the discussions and sometimes things even get heated, but there is much more to it than just that.

Last night we discussed Dan Saffer’s Book: Designing for Interaction: Creating Innovative Applications and devices. It was fairly well received by all in attendance. Overall the book is very concise and informative. We all especially liked the brief history of interaction design section, and there was spirited conversation over weather the function of Interactions Designers is to ‘’Make the world a better place to live.” It’s a 200-page overview consisting primarily of tools and techniques that Interaction Designers should be aware of and potentially using. Ideally this book would be found in a classroom or on the shelf of an ambitious student. Practitioners however may not reap as much benefit for the simple fact that the book outlines an extensive set of techniques that, as described, can only exist in a vacuum. They are neatly sectioned off for designers to consider using throughout their process. Sadly, there is little to no mention of the process itself, or of clients, or business requirements mentioned in the book. For purely educational purposes, it does a nice job of familiarizing readers with the nuts and bolts of Interaction Design practices, but might leave some wanting to hear more detailed accounts of how they can be applied in the real world.

On a related note: The club often hands out a copy of an upcoming scheduled book, and this time I was fortunate enough to win! I’m very excited to be reading Todd Zaki Warfel’s new one called Prototyping: A practitioners guide, slated for discussion at the end of June. Look for a review on that when the time comes and look for other book club meeting notes in the future.

If you would like to attend a meeting in person, check the UX Book Club Chicago website for times and dates. It meets at 350 N LaSalle Dr Chicago, IL