books recommended by World 3 voices

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one

...six books, or ten

(Ellipsis)

The Psychology of Everyday Things: The Design of Everyday Things (D.A. Norman, New York: Basic Books, 1988)

This book discusses the reasons why interface design, product design and information design are so important. There are great examples and good support for the content and meaning in design. Also available as "The Design of Everyday Things." (Nathan Shedroff)

A Natural History of the Senses (Diane Ackerman)

This is a superb and beautiful reflection on human senses. It is a great beginning for considering how humans react to information different through different senses. (Nathan Shedroff)

The Icon Book: Visual Symbols for Computer Systems and Documentation (W. Horton, New York City, NY: Wiley, 1994)

Everything you ever wanted to know about designing, developing, and implementing icons and icons systems for international audiences. (Nathan Shedroff)

Information Anxiety (Richard Saul Wurman, New York, NY: Doubleday, 1989)

This is a good book that discusses the nature of information design. While it suffers from some of its own criticism, it is readable and insightful. (Nathan Shedroff)

Envisioning Information (Edward Tufte, Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1990)

This is one of the premier books on information design. It covers most of the aspects of graphically representing information in many forms (graphs, charts, lists, maps, etc...) The sections on color and computer interface design are good for starters but don't go into nearly enough detail. (Nathan Shedroff)

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Edward Tufte, Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1983)

An important source of ideas and guidelines of making charts and graphs that communicate effectively. It touches on how to maximize the amount of data in a chart, graphical editing, derivation of new designs, use of colors, proportion and scaling, typography, grids and the comparitive effectivness of sentences, tables and graphics. (Nathan Shedroff)

A Primer of Visual Literacy (Donis A. Dondis, MIT Press, 1973)

This is a basic, insightful book although it doesn't go into nearly enough detail. Many of the same examples and information covered in his earlierbook (following) are covered here as well. (Nathan Shedroff)

The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design (ed. Brenda Laurel, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1990)

While this collection of papers discusses many aspects of interface design(some fairly advanced and specific), it has great articles on multimedia, hypertext/hypermedia, color and narrative. It is one of the best sources of current developments and thoughts on these topics. (Nathan Shedroff)

Hats Richard Saul Wurman, Design Quarterly #145, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989

A distillation of ideas from Information Anxiety, fitting many important design concepts into 32 pages. Introduces the metaphor of "information hatracks" as a way of explaining the importance of organization as a tool for understanding. "...there are really only five general ways to organize information - what I call the five hatracks: Alphabet, Time, Location,Continuum or Magnitude, and Category." (Nathan Shedroff)

Other Criteria American Center for Design Journal #1

There is some introductory information on the evolution of symbols and what distinguishes good symbols from bad. (Nathan Shedroff)

Graphic Communication W.J.Bowman, New York, NY: Wiley, 1968

Despite its age, this book is still a good introduction and source of ideas for simple graphic techniques for showing process, quantity, location, movement, structure and so on. (Nathan Shedroff)

Graphics Jacque Bertin, University of Wosconsin Press, 1983

An outstanding source of guidlines for designing symbols that communicate well. (Nathan Shedroff)

Symbols Sourcebook (Henry Dreyfuss, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972)

A great book about the power and meaning of symbols. Distinguishes good symbols from bad ones. It can be areat source of ideas when designing icons or symbols for software. (Nathan Shedroff)

The Whole Earth Review Sausalisto, CA, 415-332-1716

A quarterly magazine whose impact on network culture can't be overstated. And although it certainly doesn't classify as a "design" or a "computer" publication, its editors and writers have an uncanny track record when it comes to picking up on evolving tools, approaches and constructs that make a difference to the way we live and work. Put simply, if building electronic spaces is all about world-building, then you can be sure the whole natural ecology of hypermedia will be reflected in the pages of WER. (NR)

Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization Kevin Kelly, Addison-Wesley, 1994

Again, not a design book. But Kevin Kelly is an alumnus of WER; was the editor of SIGNAL; was involved in launching The Hackers' Conference, Cyberthon, and the WELL; and is currently executive editor at Wired - in other words, he gets to lotsa interesting places ahead of the rest of us! If you're interested in building electronic spaces, Out of Control weaves a vast, rich tapestry of ideas that lends context, meaning and direction to the process of playing god. (NR)