I made the mistake of opening the Amazon box yesterday. It contained Bill Moggridge's brand new 766 page book Designing Interactions. I have several talks to prepare and a bunch of other stuff to do, but I forgot all about them once I started reading the book. Bill has been at ground zero of the design thinking movement for 30+ years, starting has own industrial engineering firm and then joining David Kelley and Mike Nuttall to form IDEO, then the first full service design firm, which has now broadened to become an innovation firm that helps companies develop innovative products, processes, customer experiences and organizational designs. I've known Bill for about a decade and have always been touched by both his grace and brilliance, and range of skills -- and they are all on display in this beautiful book. Bill is perhaps best known as the designer of the Grid, the first laptop computer in 1981, but that is just one of the many, many designs he has contributed to developing.
This book --using interviews with many of the most influential and important people and their stories in the product design and innovation world over the past 30 years or so -- demonstrates what design thinking is and how great people do it. Read it, study it, talk about it. I've read a lot of books on creativity and design, I try to study it, teach it, apply it myself, but while there is a lot of good stuff out there, this is the masterpiece, the top of the pops.
If you are going to read one book on how to do creative work in the real world, this is it. The 700 images, the stories, the writing are all relentlessly beautiful and instructive.
Not only that, the process that Bill used to create the book also is an example of design thinking and action at its best -- the process and the product demonstrate why Bill is known as one of the most skilled designers in the world (and I mean both technically and socially skilled). I had heard about the book a bit from Bill, as I was amazed to hear that he was -- with help from key people at IDEO and his social network -- producing everything in the book himself, writing all the words, doing all the interviews with 40 or so designers and innovators who are the main focus of the book -- everyone from Doug Englebart (inventor of the computer mouse) to Google's Larry Page to Wil Wright (creator of the Sims) -- to designing the layout and cover, to using desktop publishing and video editing software himself to bring it all together. In fact, I confess that although I have made it through the text, I haven't even looked at the DVD yet that is included with the book, and as I've implied, Bill also produced.
In the name of full disclosure, I am an IDEO Fellow and have known and admired Bill for along time. But I know and admire lots of people who write books on creativity and innovation. This is the masterpiece in my view. This book is published by MIT Press -- which has had few if any books at the top of the best-seller list in its history -- and it is about 500 pages longer than most books that are slated to be hit sellers. But it deserves to be a best seller given the current clamoring for creativity and innovation throughout the world. Designing Interactions only costs $26.37 on Amazon -- and it has more useful information and inspiration than any 10 other books you are likely to buy that are vaguely related to the subject -- and they don't have a DVD.
Now I have to go back to my other chores and resist the temptation to watch the DVD for another couple days. It is 100 minutes!
P.S. Checkout the Designing Interactions Website -- you can see video clips from the DVD there and read a sample chapter.
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