UX Book Club Melbourne had their first meetup on Tuesday 17th February 2009. Meetups take place on the third Tuesday of every alternative month thereafter (or thereabouts)

Next Meetup is on 20 April 2010, discussing Measuring the User Experience by Tom Tullis and Bill Albert

We love good UX books, but somehow its hard to find the space to discuss what we liked-disliked agreed-disagreed with about a book.

Bookclubs are a great way to gather and discuss ideas that affect user experience professionals today. From information architects and interaction designers to visual designers and usability specialists, we seek to augment their understanding for excellence in UX practice, interaction design (IxD) theory while building a passionate local community.

Subjects of interest to this club span design theory, design research and user experience research practices and processes. The books include the strategy and business of design, UX design theory and history, methodology, usability research, and the ethics of UX professionals, while networking and having some fun.

this page docuemnts what's going on, and we run our discussion of what books to read and details over at Google Groups

Feel free to just turn up on the night too.. discussion tends to cover a wide range of topics, so don't worry if you haven't read the book!

Next bookclub is on

Tue 15 June

Web Calendar at http://bit.ly/d4auqa

at

MCD Studio, Level 2, Building 9 (at the city baths end of Bowen St) Bowen St RMIT University city campus

http://bit.ly/2T4CLf

Bring something to drink, we have some glasses etc

If you have any troubles getting to the studio just txt or call jeremy on 0409870616

We will be meeting on Tuesday June 15th to discuss:

Thoughts on Interaction Design

by Jon Kolko

It is the primary goal of this text to better define Interaction Design.
An additional goal of this text is to assure practicing Interaction Designers that they are not, in fact, simply tools to be used in the cleanup phases of a technology-centered project.
A final goal of this text is to provide Interaction Designers with the vocabulary necessary to justify their existence to other team members: to engineers, to marketers, and ultimately, to management.

We met on Tuesday April 20th to discuss:

Measuring the User Experience

by Tom Tullis and Bill Albert

Effectively measuring the usability of any product requires choosing the right metric, applying it, and effectively using the information it reveals. Measuring the User Experience provides the first single source of practical information to enable usability professionals and product developers to do just that.

Authors Tullis and Albert organize dozens of metrics into six categories:

• performance
• issues-based
• self-reported
• web navigation
• derived
• behavioral/physiological

They explore each metric, considering best methods for collecting, analyzing, and presenting the data. They provide step-by-step guidance for measuring the usability of any type of product using any type of technology.

Presents criteria for selecting the most appropriate metric for every case
Takes a product and technology neutral approach
Presents in-depth case studies to show how organizations have successfully used the metrics and the information they revealed

by Joshua Porter

16th February 2010

No matter what type of web site or application you’re building, social interaction among the people who use it will be key to its success.

They will talk about it, invite their friends, complain, sing its high praises, and dissect it in countless ways.

With the right design strategy you can use this social interaction to get people signing up, coming back regularly, and bringing others into the fold.

With tons of examples from real-world interfaces and a touch of the underlying social psychology theory, Joshua Porter shows you how to design your next great social web application.

by Kim Goodwin

20th October 2009

Whether you're designing consumer electronics, medical devices, enterprise Web apps, or new ways to check out at the supermarket, today's digitally-enabled products and services provide both great opportunities to deliver compelling user experiences and great risks of driving your customers crazy with complicated, confusing technology.

Designing successful products and services in the digital age requires a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in interaction design, visual design, industrial design, and other disciplines. It also takes the ability to come up with the big ideas that make a desirable product or service, as well as the skill and perseverance to execute on the thousand small ideas that get your design into the hands of users. It requires expertise in project management, user research, and consensus-building.

This comprehensive, full-color volume addresses all of these and more with detailed how-to information, real-life examples, and exercises. Topics include assembling a design team, planning and conducting user research, analyzing your data and turning it into personas, using scenarios to drive requirements definition and design, collaborating in design meetings, evaluating and iterating your design, and documenting finished design in a way that works for engineers and stakeholders alike.

by Dan Roam

18th August

The premise behind Roam's book is simple: anybody with a pen and a scrap of paper can use visual thinking to work through complex business ideas.

Management consultant and lecturer Roam begins with a watershed moment: asked, at the last minute, to give a talk to top government officials, he sketched a diagram on a napkin. The clarity and power of that image allowed him to communicate directly with his audience. From this starting point, Roam has developed a remarkably comprehensive system of ideas.

Everything in the book is broken down into steps, providing the reader with tools and rules to facilitate picture making. There are the four steps of visual thinking, the six ways of seeing and the SQVID– a clumsy acronym for a full brain visual work out designed to focus ideas. Roam occasionally overcomplicates; an extended case study takes up a full third of the book and contains an overload of images that belie the book's central message of simplicity. Nonetheless, for forward-thinking management types, there is enough content in these pages to drive many a brainstorming session. (Mar 13, via Amazon)

By Dan Saffer

16th June 2009

From Amazon: Explore the new design discipline that is behind such products as the iPod and innovative Web sites like Flickr. While other books on this subject are either aimed at more seasoned practitioners or else are too focused on a particular medium like software, this guide will take a more holistic approach to the discipline, looking at interaction design for the Web, software, and devices. It is the only interaction design book that is coming from a designers point of view rather than that of an engineer.

This much-needed guide is more than just a how-to manual. It covers interaction design fundamentals, approaches to designing, design research, and more, and spans all mediums—Internet, software, and devices. Even robots! Filled with tips, real-world projects, and interviews, you’ll get a solid grounding in everything you need to successfully tackle interaction design.

http://www.designingforinteraction.com/

Designing for Interaction is an AIGA Design Press book, published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA.

By Matthew Frederick

24 April 2009

This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and abstruse in the classroom.

These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation—from the basics of “How to Draw a Line” to the complexities of color theory—provide a much-needed primer in architectural literacy, making concrete what too often is left nebulous or open-ended in the architecture curriculum. Each lesson utilizes a two-page format, with a brief explanation and an illustration that can range from diagrammatic to whimsical.

The lesson on “How to Draw a Line” is illustrated by examples of good and bad lines; a lesson on the dangers of awkward floor level changes shows the television actor Dick Van Dyke in the midst of a pratfall; a discussion of the proportional differences between traditional and modern buildings features a drawing of a building split neatly in half between the two.

Written by an architect and instructor who remembers well the fog of his own student days, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School provides valuable guideposts for navigating the design studio and other classes in the architecture curriculum. Architecture graduates—from young designers to experienced practitioners—will turn to the book as well, for inspiration and a guide back to basics when solving a complex design problem.

by Bill Buxton

17 Feb 2009

The book up for discussion in the first meeting is Bill Buxton's “Sketching User Experiences”.

There is almost a fervor in the way that new products, with their rich and dynamic interfaces, are being released to the public—typi- cally promising to make lives easier, solve the most difficult of problems, and maybe even make the world a better place. The reality is that few of these products survive, much less deliver on their promise. The folly? An absence of design, and an over reliance on just technology and/or traditional practice. We need design. But design as described here depends on the skills of a number of different communities—each essential, but on their own, none sufficient. In this rich ecology, designers are faced with new challenges—challenges that build on, rather than replace, existing skills and practice.

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 these new types of products and systems. So while the focus is on design, the approach is holistic. Hence, the book speaks to designers, usability specialists, people from HCI, 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 building 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.

Full reference: Sketching user experiences : getting the design right and the right design / Bill Buxton. Published by Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, California in 2007. 443 pages. ISBN: 9780123740373 (paperback).

please sign up at http://groups.google.com/group/uxbookclub-melbourne

Listing of books we'd like to read (Google Group)…