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Dan Saffer
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Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications And Clever Devices 1st Edition

by Dan Saffer (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 19 ratings
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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.

Designing for Interaction is an AIGA Design Press book, published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0321432061
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0321432063
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    New Riders Pub
  5. Publication date
    January 1, 2006
  6. Part of series
    Voices That Matter
  7. Language
    English
  8. Dimensions
    7 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  9. Print length
    231 pages
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dan Saffer has worked for the last decade in the digital medium as a webmaster, producer, developer, copywriter, creative lead, information architect, and interaction designer. He is currently a senior interaction designer at Adaptive Path, a leading design consultancy and has designed and built Web sites, devices, and applications for companies as diverse as Tiffany & Co and the World Wrestling Federation. His work has been featured in New York magazine, Entertainment Weekly, and the Chicago Tribune. His Web site and blog can be found at www.odannyboy.com. Dan is a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and received his Master of Design in Interaction Design from Carnegie Mellon University, where he also taught interaction design.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Riders Pub; 1st edition (January 1, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 231 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0321432061
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321432063
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 19 ratings

About the author

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Dan Saffer

Dan Saffer

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Dan Saffer is Director of Interaction Design at Smart Design and the author of four books: Designing for Interaction, Designing Gestural Interfaces, Designing Devices, and Microinteractions.

Since 1995, Dan has designed devices, software, websites, robots, and services that are currently used by millions every day. He speaks at conferences and teaches workshops on interaction design all over the world. He and his products have been in BusinessWeek, Fast Company, and Wired, and his design innovations have received several patents.

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4 out of 5 stars
19 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Eric Ferraiuolo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction and insight on Interaction Designing
    Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2007
    Verified Purchase
    This book first off, is written excellently! It keeps you engaged, and shows real-world examples of Interaction Design. I felt it was a great introduction to Interaction Design, explaining what Interaction Design is and isn't. After reading the book I felt I've added much to my knowledge of designing and gave me a clear path on how to approach designing applications (specifically web applications) that users interact with that will be successful.

    I highly recommend this book!
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  • Mr. M. J. Lowe
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of Interaction Design
    Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2009
    Dan Saffer deserves to be congratulated on producing an excellent in-depth introduction to the topic of Interaction Design.

    I've put off purchasing this book for a while as there was only one other review of this book on Amazon.co.uk for ages, that gave no idea of what ground was covered or what value the book offered. I then recently saw the book listed in Smashing Magazines' 'Top 10' for great web/usability/design books, and bought it on the strength of this review.

    I have not been disappointed, and this is now one of my favourite design books, as it works well both as a well written overview of the topic, as well as a useful source of reference if you are starting to work on either an interactive product or digital (or both) project.

    Chapter headings include:

    Ch1: What is Interaction Design?
    Ch2: Starting Points
    Ch3: Interaction Design Basics
    Ch4: Design Research & Brainstorming
    Ch5: The Craft of Interaction Design
    Ch6: Interface Design Basics
    Ch7: Smart Applications & Clever Devices
    Ch8: Service Design
    Ch9: The Future of Interaction Design
    Epilogue: Designing for Good

    The text is well written, with excellent supporting illustrations, photos and diagrams that complement the clearly explained text throughout. The book is well structured and each chapter builds well on the preceding topic.

    One feature I particularly liked was that most chapters have a guest interviewee who is a subject matter expert answering a short series of interesting questions that add depth and perspective to the topic in hand.

    Despite the book being relatively short (I see this as a positive at just over 200 pages), it acts as a great starter to the subject, and you can then conduct more in-depth reading on specific chapters as your requirements determine.

    My only small gripe with the book is this very point - that there are not reference sources for future research at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book. Dan - please note for your 2nd edition!

    Despite being written in 2007, and considering how quickly technology moves along, this is still largely bang up-to-date. I would strongly recommend this as an excellent purchase for anyone interested in broadening their knowledge on this fascinating and increasingly important field of design.
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  • Adler Scout
    2.0 out of 5 stars ok as an overview, but very poorly written and without references
    Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2007
    Verified Purchase
    I was very excited waiting for this book and after reading the reviews I decided to buy it. After reading it, I'm wondering if the reviewers actually read the book??? I spent some time writing this because I would like to see books better written and more useful. This is just my opinion, so read other reviews as well.

    *Book direction*
    Dan tried to cover too much. After all "interaction" is an extremely broad term and I think it would be much better if the book would focus more on "Interactive Systems Design", the design for interactions in systems and technology. Jesse James Garrett, did an excellent job in his book The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web by focusing it on web applications, although you can extrapolate what you learn there to a more general approach of UX. I believe that if Dan would have done the same, the book would became an excellent book and a reference book.

    In my opinion, Saffer could have made this book into a reference book by being the Editor and writing about what he knows best, e.g., craft of Interaction Design (IxD):
    - Each chapter could have been written by an expert in that area
    - The introduction is very general, with statement that I don't really agree and I felt it is very personal - what Dan things about IxD. I read it all for the safe of being entitled to write this, but I didn't find it useful at all.

    *Great*
    - The Interviews: they cover very interesting topics and reading them gives a very quick and excellent insights of the topics they cover. (On the other hand, the text in the book repeats the interview points instead of going deeper). You can find the interviews online at [...].
    - Organisation: very well organised and structured, which makes it easier to select what you want to read or when you want to go back to a chapter later on.
    - The elements of IxD: this is quite interesting and to some extent useful. It misses some more work in the way the examples are used and in how to use these elements.
    - Service chapter: this chapter is quite interesting and useful, however I would argue that it would belong to a book about User Experience.
    - Very easy to read and not boring (except when you doubt about what he argues).

    *Good*
    - Putting it all together. The elements, interviews, aspects of good design, craft of IxD, and so forth. Great that a book puts all these together but it's a pity that was done very poorly. I still consider this good because it was a good piece of work Dan did and it will be useful for people staring with IxD. However, I look forward for such kind of book but well written.
    - Size of the book: I wish more books were like this. Short and delivers the message. However, the text is not that well written and repeating most of the times what we got by reading the interviews. Instead Saffer could have picked up from the interview and explored the issues in a deeper way.
    - Examples: are OK, but when the explanation started to be interesting he stops. Most of the times I felt he explains the obvious but not the design "genius" behind the product.

    *Very bad*
    - Meaningless text (not all): some explanations don't say more than what you see in the picture or you can read in the interview. The explanations are many times obvious instead of bringing up the design issues behind.
    - No references/bibliography: Is Dan a god of IxD?? It seems so. Although he occasional refers to some people or books, there are no references at all. Not even in the end of each chapter. On one hand this makes the text very insecure and at sometimes I almost get the feeling that he is the only one believing on what he says or he is the only one that saw that example. On the other hand, saying that "this is common practice among designers" is not enough, especially when I know situations that are the opposite. In fact I cannot believe that such a book can be published without any references or bibliography. Maybe this book is a novel...
    - Service Design: As I said above, I see this chapter rather in a book about User Experience. And the interviews somehow support my opinion by talking about User Experience. Perhaps, I could accept a service design chapter if Dan would have narrowed the services he talks about to more specific interactions. He might argue that Interaction Design is not just about technology but then he should have spent more time in writing the book and perhaps having other people as co-authors. In this early age of IxD it is much better to focus on concrete things, otherwise you risk you neck in talking about things that are actually from other disciplines.
    - Some of the examples and explanations. I could almost say they are non-sense, but I think it just misses a bit more work to put the design explanation instead of describing the obvious. I hope I'll have time later on to put some here.

    This book, in my opinion, is overrated! The book is good at collecting the arguable "elements for Interaction Design" but it doesn't deliver what the reviews say. You'd be better of by reading the interviews online and perhaps wait for a better book. If you cannot wait, then buy this one but read something else as well so you have a critical eye when reading the book and don't take everything for granted.

    I think it would be useful to define and separate: "Interaction Design" and "Interaction Systems Design". The former is too general and the second is what I call what this book says it is "Interaction Design."
    I'd recommend About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design and Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services (the best books on the topic with details on how-to) and Thoughts on Interaction Design (the best book on explaining Interaction Design, linking theory with practice and with excellent interviews as well as a quick and easy read).
    80 people found this helpful
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  • Rodrigo M. Terra
    4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
    Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2008
    This book is helping me to understand how i need to start to design interactivity for Digital Television. A must-have.
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  • Uday N. Gajendar
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant overview of the fundamentals!
    Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2006
    This is an insightful and necessary read for anyone entering the field of interaction design/user experience but also serves as a wonderful refresher for current practitioners, covering all the major areas, from software to devices, to entire systems. With lucid, articulate, easy language Saffer explains what I regard as the fundamentals of interaction design: definitions, contexts, methods/approaches, and new frontiers, all backed by relevant and clear examples. Some noteworthy highlights: compact case studies of real designs (like Google's IM), interviews with veteran design pros like Hugh Dubberly, Marc Rettig, Shelley Evansen, and a sharp look at Service Design and design for devices. Saffer fluidly conveys what I've always struggled to express: interaction design is not just web design, but a mode of thought and action towards improving relationships.

    With this book, Saffer is clearly poised to be an influential voice for interaction design, a field many of us practice unwittingly but few are able to explain effectively to broader audiences. Highly recommend!!
    8 people found this helpful
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