Book Review - Analog In, Digital Out by Brendan Dawes
Category Book Reviews
For those of us not inclined towards design, It's always a good idea to look for ways to "think different" about the process. Brendan Dawes does that in his book Analog In, Digital Out: Brendan Dawes on Interaction Design. It's definitely not a "how to" book, but more of an idea generator...
Contents: Looking Up; Revolutionaries - The Zephyr Skateboard Team; Just Ring the Bell When You Get There; "Brown Paper and String" Moments; Play-Doh as Interface; Recycling the Past; All This Useless Beauty; Anything Can Happen in the Next Half-Hour; Waiting for Departure; Nightmare at 30,000 Feet; Strangers on a Train; Spiral Notebook; Revolutionaries - John Whitney; The Power of Silence; Jazz Inspiration; Close to You; Don't Think; Constraints Are Good; Revolutionaries - Raymond Scott; The Special Capability of Making Many Mistakes; Perfection? In a Word, the Pencil; Designing for My Mum; Walk On By; Where's All My Stuff Gone?; A World without Undo; Mash-Up at the Movies; Contextual Memories; Rock 'n' Roll; Mariah Carey Syndrome; From Thin Air; Bending the Rules; Evidence of Use; Comfortably Numb
You know this isn't the typical design book when you start going through it... Large full-page graphics, unusual typesetting, and images that are not your ordinary book fare. But I guess that's to be expected from someone who has devoted their life to interaction design and wondering how the analog world can be made digital. I mentioned that it's not a "how to" book, in that you won't find any best practices lists or before/after website designs. It's more a "stream of consciousness" book on the author's feelings and thoughts towards the subject. For instance, he talks about how he took Play-doh (analog) and created an interface (digital) that allowed someone to see online effects of their real-world interaction with an object that has no interface. Or how he took music (analog) and used it as input to a graphic generation program (digital) in order to create musical fingerprints of songs. Maybe the specific idea isn't necessarily practical, but it leads you into taking a different view of things that fall outside of our normal established patterns. I think my favorite chapter was "Mariah Carey Syndrome"... Just because you have an eight octave range in your voice, it doesn't mean you have to use it on *every single note*... just because you can, doesn't mean you should...
The practicality-oriented readers might be a bit frustrated with the lack of "do this" material. But approached in the correct way, this book offers some unique insights that aren't normally considered. Definitely a different type of read...
If you liked this review and found it helpful, please click on the Amazon book link in the review and click the Yes (Was This Review Helpful To You?) button at the bottom of my review. Thanks!
For those of us not inclined towards design, It's always a good idea to look for ways to "think different" about the process. Brendan Dawes does that in his book Analog In, Digital Out: Brendan Dawes on Interaction Design. It's definitely not a "how to" book, but more of an idea generator...
Contents: Looking Up; Revolutionaries - The Zephyr Skateboard Team; Just Ring the Bell When You Get There; "Brown Paper and String" Moments; Play-Doh as Interface; Recycling the Past; All This Useless Beauty; Anything Can Happen in the Next Half-Hour; Waiting for Departure; Nightmare at 30,000 Feet; Strangers on a Train; Spiral Notebook; Revolutionaries - John Whitney; The Power of Silence; Jazz Inspiration; Close to You; Don't Think; Constraints Are Good; Revolutionaries - Raymond Scott; The Special Capability of Making Many Mistakes; Perfection? In a Word, the Pencil; Designing for My Mum; Walk On By; Where's All My Stuff Gone?; A World without Undo; Mash-Up at the Movies; Contextual Memories; Rock 'n' Roll; Mariah Carey Syndrome; From Thin Air; Bending the Rules; Evidence of Use; Comfortably Numb
You know this isn't the typical design book when you start going through it... Large full-page graphics, unusual typesetting, and images that are not your ordinary book fare. But I guess that's to be expected from someone who has devoted their life to interaction design and wondering how the analog world can be made digital. I mentioned that it's not a "how to" book, in that you won't find any best practices lists or before/after website designs. It's more a "stream of consciousness" book on the author's feelings and thoughts towards the subject. For instance, he talks about how he took Play-doh (analog) and created an interface (digital) that allowed someone to see online effects of their real-world interaction with an object that has no interface. Or how he took music (analog) and used it as input to a graphic generation program (digital) in order to create musical fingerprints of songs. Maybe the specific idea isn't necessarily practical, but it leads you into taking a different view of things that fall outside of our normal established patterns. I think my favorite chapter was "Mariah Carey Syndrome"... Just because you have an eight octave range in your voice, it doesn't mean you have to use it on *every single note*... just because you can, doesn't mean you should...
The practicality-oriented readers might be a bit frustrated with the lack of "do this" material. But approached in the correct way, this book offers some unique insights that aren't normally considered. Definitely a different type of read...
If you liked this review and found it helpful, please click on the Amazon book link in the review and click the Yes (Was This Review Helpful To You?) button at the bottom of my review. Thanks!
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