The Art of Interactive Design: A Euphonious and Illuminating Guide to Building Successful Software

This book is a very diffcult read. Touching on a whole lot of subjects, alternating between abstract, complicated theory and abundant, confusing detail, and displaying Crawford's usual Thesaurus-o-holic writing style, it is sure to leave you scratching your head in bewilderment a couple of times. Still, I must heartily reccomend it to anyone who is willing to make the effort. This book is very far from an intellectual "do it yourself" kit, though it does have many useful practical suggestions. It also has very little that would satisfy the criteria of academic research. What it does have, however, is an abundance of sheer, brilliant inspiration. The pages are laden with powerful, abstract concepts that, upon reading and re-reading them, slowly seep into your mind and enrich your thinking on the subject immensely. It is for this important reason, and for this reason alone, that I consider this book priceless. Mental enrichment is a far rarer commodity than either practical know-whats or academic knowledge. Mr. Crawford is a charming, albeit disorderly, writer (whether he's on topic or not), and this book must be his most amusing and wittiest creation. Readers who are acquinted with Mr. Crawford's other books will notice with approval that this volume contains comparatively little that can be found in his other books or on his website, although, of course, ideas as well as specific paragraphs are qouted from himself due to his iredeemably conversational writing style. Computerized interactivity is the next great landmark in Western civilization after the invention of the printing press. With its deep understanding of the concepts underlying interactivity, this book is a must not only for those who work in interactivity design, but also for anyone interested in understanding the revolution that the world is going through. Get this book for an extremely rewarding mental challenge!

This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to be considered a software developer or who is interested in really making software that users love. Mr. Crawford does a great job of getting right to the heart of software development and what developers SHOULD be thinking about before they start coding.While this book will primarily appeal to the technical type, sales and marketing people could also benefit quite a bit from the concepts, especially on abstraction.I did find that the author can lose the reader from time to time with the details of a concept -- because let's face it, this can be pretty boring stuff -- still even just skimming the book and pulling out the core ideas and concepts should give you a lot to think about and better ways of approaching future development projects.

The Art of Interactive Design was the sleeper of the year for me. I'm surprised it hasn't created more of a splash. Perhaps it's because it's published by a lesser known publisher and it doesn't fit the standard format of most usability or GUI books. It doesn't, for instance, include any code examples. It's purely about concepts and approaches.What Chris Crawford does that is so effective is to approach design issues from such an oblique angle that I found myself looking at very familiar situations with new eyes. The text bursts with the outraged language of a frustrated user. Consider his description of the old documentation issue:"I hold in special contempt those designers who dismiss users' fears with RTFM (Read The Manual); I'd love to lock them in a dark room at four in the morning with a 400-page manual explaining how to turn on the lights."That kind of robust language, and some very useful technical information from his experience as a games programmer, makes this book an easy five star recommendation.

Accessibly written by experienced game developer and lecturer Chris Crawford, The Art Of Interactive Design is a superbly presented software designer's guide to crafting more practical and functional interactive software. Individual chapters aptly focus on methods and metaphors for creating algorithms, language design, practical and innovative advice for adaptable anthropomorphization, advice for avoiding common mistakes, and a great deal more. The Art Of Interactive Design is an excellent instructional guide, an informative overview, and a "must-have" supplement for personal and professional interactive computer programming reference shelves.

Crawford is one of those intellectual gems who is often overlooked by the swirling tumult of art-star-authors and lexicon-twisting new media theorists. His work is outstanding; and this book is no exception. I originally bought this book when it was marketed as "Understanding Interactivity" - the facelift is quite nice, but the invaluable information is still, well, invaluable. This book has the unique capability of crystalizing the key elements of interactivity (from a real-world standpoint) so that first year students are able to understand the overarching concepts (I use the book in my Interactive Multimedia classes). But, like any great book, it accomodates and grows along with the experience and knowledge of the reader. There is much to gain from Crawford's lucid, intriguing and well thought out text - and I recommend it to anyone interested in exploring the creation of artwork that incorporates or addresses interactivity.