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Title details for User Friendly by Cliff Kuang - Available

User Friendly

How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play

by Cliff Kuang
Robert Fabricant
Audiobook
8 of 12 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
8 of 12 copies available

This program includes material read by the authors.
In User Friendly, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant reveal the untold story of a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: the assumption that machines should anticipate what we need.
Spanning over a century of sweeping changes, from women's rights to the Great Depression to World War II to the rise of the digital era, this audiobook unpacks the ways in which the world has been—and continues to be—remade according to the principles of the once-obscure discipline of user-experience design.
In this essential program, Kuang and Fabricant map the hidden rules of the designed world and shed light on how those rules have caused our world to change—an underappreciated but essential history that's pieced together for the first time. Combining the expertise and insight of a leading journalist and a pioneering designer, User Friendly provides a definitive, thoughtful, and practical perspective on a topic that has rapidly gone from arcane to urgent to inescapable. In User Friendly, Kuang and Fabricant tell the whole story for the first time—and you'll never interact with technology the same way again.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 19, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781250236166
      • File size: 325621 KB
      • Duration: 11:18:22

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Warm, soft, and feminine, Jean Ann Douglass's narration is skillful, but her tonality is mismatched to Kuang and Fabricant's textbook examination of the evolution of the modern design paradigm: Machines should anticipate what we as humans require. Examining more than 100 years, the authors analyze how the world was slowly and then quickly digitally reconstituted according to user-friendly design. Their highly academic study may be better suited to a more professorial yet engaging narration style. Listeners will learn about user-friendly design in the development of highly successful commercial products--most obviously the iPhone. Speaking of design with the user in mind, more careful consideration should have been given to the assignment of the audiobook narration. Despite these reservations, the audiobook is an enjoyable listening experience. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 23, 2019
      Journalist Kuang debuts with this engrossing history of how the design of commercial products and technological innovations came to be singularly focused on the user experience. It proves a sprawling and multifaceted story, with side excursions into near-miss nuclear disasters, WWII fighter plane crashes, and the latest developments in driverless cars. The user-friendly ethos, Kuang explains, requires learning “why people behave as they do” so as to “design around their foibles and limitations.” Not hesitating to get philosophical, he notes that this goal represents a remarkable intellectual shift from “the Enlightenment’s faith in the perfectibility of mankind’s reasoning.” One of the most intriguing chapters considers the use of metaphors in design—for example, the deeply entrenched metaphor of the “desktop” in Apple products—and the value of finding new metaphors. The work also includes profiles of influential designers such as Henry Dreyfuss—who worked on everything from waffle irons and school desks to thermostats and washing machines—and, in an afterword from coauthor Fabricant, cofounder of Dalberg Design, helpful tips for fellow designers on incorporating user-friendly practices. The result is an erudite and insightful exploration of a revolution in human thinking that most people have probably never considered.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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