Designing Interactions is a collection of interviews with people who have invented and designed things that we interact with on a daily basis, from the desktop metaphor and the computer mouse to Google and the iPod. The decades worth of experience that can be distilled from this book make it a must read for interaction designers, but anyone who design for others are bound to get something out of it.

I recently found some notes I made on the DVD and though it’s been a while since I read it, I figure that now would be as good time as any to blog it. Designing Interactions will stay topical for many years to come…

As my DVD-notes illustrate Designing Interactions is so full of usefulness that it’s easy to make it sound boring. But Designing Interactions is about the people behind innovations and their stories are inspiring and engaging throughout the book. To spice it up even more ground-breakingly useful innovations are mixed with less “serious” (but arguably equally important) projects like the Nipple Chair and Meat Eating Products. And it’s richly illustrated…

Besides from the interviews Designing Interaction also comes with an excellent introduction to interaction design and a lot of interaction design philosophy by and from Bill Moggridge (the author).

Notes on some of the DVD interviews:
Bill Atkinson - the importance of user testing, Paul Bradley - prototyping, Cordell Ratzlaf - putting concepts before technology, Stu Card - how researchers can provide constrains for designers, David Liddle - the three phases of adoption, Mat Hunter - user motivation, Paul Mercer - putting development times in perspective, Terry Winograd - three interaction metaphors.

New Media in Art by Michael Rush is just like Digital Art filled to the brim with references to artists. Rush start of with Duchamp and moves onwards to contemporary giants such as Nam Jun Paik, Bill Viola and Pipilotti Rist (a personal favorite) via about a zillion lesser known names. The book doesn’t really cover what most people would call “new media” today but it is a nice introduction to 20th century art and a really good introduction to video art. Coincidentally the book was originally published under the title New Media in Late 20th-Century Art and Rush is also the author of a book called Video Art…

Digital Art by Christiane Paul (Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney) is an excellent reference and introduction to art that uses digital tools and media. Across 200+ pages Christiane Paul manages to squeeze in about three references and three pictures of artists and artworks per page. Still, the book is thought-provoking and has a flow and structure that makes it enjoyable to read from cover to cover. And it’s cheap…

While I was looking at one of Sally Mans landscape photographs I realized that imperfections create interpretative spaces which promote involvement. They obscure what lays beneath them and force you to look a bit harder, giving whatever it is that you find a greater impact.

As I had recently read Nike Culture by Goldman and Papson this reminded me of one of many examples of how the book offers insights in visual communication by deconstructing Nike’s advertising. According to the authors Nike’s advertising agency (Wieden & Kennedy) intentionally lowered the sound quality of one of Nike’s TV commercials to make a jesting particularly hard to follow. Thus forcing the viewer to lean in to listen and become more immersed by the commercial…

Home Photography by Andrew Sanderson is a very unpretentious collection of personal observations from a photographer who finds inspiration in everyday life. If I had just flickered through this book at a bookshop I probably wouldn’t have thought that it was for me. But I didn’t, and now that I have read it I’m really happy. It has been a bit like being stuck on the porch of a country house on a rainy summer day.

Retail Desire - Design, Display and Visual Merchandising by John Tucker is a collection of case studies of fashion stores from all over the world. Most of the case studies are of non interactive interior designs, still after reading the book it is obvious that interactive technology and new media has a place in visual merchandising. The purpose of visual merchandising is to create retail desire through differentiation and by expressing individuality and identity. Interactive installations can provide a much needed wow factor, sense of theater and story for a store or product. Always changing they have the advantage of always being able to present something different to the viewers to capture and hold their interest. Placed in window displays, just inside the door or at the back of the store they can help to pull customers into the store, lure them all the way through it and make them stay…