Thoughtful Interaction Design

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1. __mApr 2019
   I think looking at other solutions won’t limit your creativity when you are conscious about this potential framing. It might even give you a new perspective, a requirement that you neglected, it could have a synergetic effect. Just like a todo list might constrain you to thinking about lists if you don’t question every assumption you make. I really like the book „thoughtful interaction design“ by Jonas Löwgren
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2. __mOct 2016
   A meta book about the process "Thoughtful interaction design" Löwgren, Stolterman
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3. arkitaipMay 2011
   IMHO you first need to understand design, its various sub fields (i.e. typography, colors, layout), user experience design/interaction design/usability, and finally how all of this applies to the web. You can learn the basics by reading books but the only way to truly understand and master is by study this things in the world and by practicing them. Start thinking about design, analyze it in your daily life, do your own makeovers of sites you use, design a blog theme, etc, etc.

   As for web typography, you want to check of the latest generation of font embedding because that's where the real magic's at. The most known web font solutions are: CSS3 (font-face), typeface.js, cufon, flir, sifr, Google Font API, Typekit.

   Here's a list of quality books on design and typography:

       A History of Graphic Design
       Before & After Page Design
       Designing Brand Identity
       Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
       Graphic Design Solutions
       How Designers Think
       Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
       Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop 
       The Complete Manual of Typography
       The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations
       The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type
       The Elements of Typographic Style
       The New Typography
       The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
       Thinking with Type: A Primer for Designers
       Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design 
   	

   Books on web design:

       About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
       Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become  
       Bulletproof Web Design
       Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide
       Designing Web Usability
       Designing With Web Standards
       Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design
       Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction
       Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
       Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed
       Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites
       Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web  
       Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction
       Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
       The Essential Guide to User Interface Design
       The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
       Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology
       Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks

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4. ctbeiserFeb 2013
   Having self-taught myself a lot about design, let me give you a few pointers.

   The number one rule is that you have to start paying attention to the design of everything. Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" is a good start on developing this, and you really shouldn't miss it. But this applies to everything: when something's nice, figure out why. Notice typefaces, and form a mental library so you can identify them.

   It's a bit of an odd path, but I'll also suggest, since you're interested in interactive systems, reading several great Human Interface Guidelines. Apple's OS X ones are my favorite (You might even want to get an older version, because they're a bit more general), but the Nokia Meego ones are worth a look too. Most others are too mediocre to teach you anything though.

   Some other books I have to suggest: Bringhurtst's "The Elements of Typographic Style." Definately read some kind of lighter treatment of type first, so you know humanists from geometrics, serifs from sans, high and low contrast, and so forth, but if you want to really get it, this is the book. If you go in knowing that some of what he's saying is opinion, this is the book you need to read.

   The Universal Principles of Design: It's really not the best book, and there's some things, like the readability research, that's actually just complete crap, but it's an alright, quick overview of a few dozen concepts. If you understand the concepts in it, skip it, but as a first intro, you could do worse.

   The Humane Interface: Other than Raskin's whining about the Canon Cat not being a hit for slightly too long, it's got some interesting concepts that all designers should understand.

   Thoughtful Interaction Design: This one's very theoretical, and very heavy reading; it's really about a way to view the design process, and how it proceeds, more than it is about how to design. Don't read it until you've done a few projects.

   The Visual Display of Quantitative Information: This is a great book on presenting information. Just ignore the ridiculous stuff about minimizing ink, and think of it as minimizing the cognitive load.

   For a quick overview of a couple interesting concepts, you might try method.ac, reading the wikipedia pages on Fitt's Law and http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk and trolling through http://informationarchitects.net/blog/.

   Stay away from ux.stackexchange.com, news.layervault.com, PSDtuts, et. c. It's almost all crap, about tools rather than actual designing. In general (very much in general), if a blog post on design is short, it's crap, 95% of the time.

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