Truth, naked and cold, had been turned away from every door in the village. Her nakedness frightened the people. When Parable found her she was huddled in a corner, shivering and hungry. Taking pity on her, Parable gathered her up and took her home. There, she dressed Truth in story, warmed her and sent her out again. Clothed in story, Truth knocked again at the doors and was readily welcomed into the villagers' houses. They invited her to eat at their tables and warm herself by their fires. -- Jewish Teaching Story

I've been reading a number of books about how to communicate effectively, and one thing they all harp on is the power of story telling. No need to sell me! But it did send me to my bookshelf to fish out a book I had ordered long ago on someone's recommendation. The second chapter opened with the above story, and I found it so compelling I had to share.

Since I am currently enamored of lists, I'll share the author's (Annette Simmons) six key types of stories:
1. "Who Am I" Stories
2. "Why Am I Here" Stories
3. "The Vision" Story
4. "Teaching" Stories
5. "Values-in-Action" Stories
6. "I Know What You Are Thinking" Stories

Each one is designed to establish credibility, create empathy and eventually teach or persuade the listener. I appreciate Simmons continual attention to the end goal of story telling in the context of our work lives, as other books get caught up in the mythology and poetry of our oral history. This is a business book first, and knows it. If you are a disciple of Fray, if you are a student of Joseph Campbell, or looking to write the next American novel I recommend you look elsewhere. Bu if you have to make a presentation to the executive team, this is the perfect book for you. I'm only a third in right now, so I'll probably have more to tell as I work my way through, but so far I'm enjoying the focus and the form.

Here is a short article by her if you'd like to sample her writing style: The Power of Story: Dressing Up the Naked Truth.

In honor of this week's essay in B&A on Strunk and White, I offer up this proof of influence:

And take it from me, there are Elements of Style for spreadsheets, chemistry, calculation, Fortran and preaching...

Buy this, read this. I'll say more about why later.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

This morning I found my Sandman Companion still open to the page I was on when I left 7 weeks ago (that is a true sign of marital respect, folks. As well as of geekiness on my part.) And Neil Gaimen is saying that he learned in World's End that some stories can't be told in 24 pages. And it made me think of his novels, such as Anasi Boys, which at 416 pages could hardly be called a short book-- except it is. I read it in a couple days. Compare with the truely amazing and terrific Middlesex, weighing in at 544 pages. If I hadn't looked up the two, I would have sworn Anasi Boys was 250-300 pages, and Middlesex was 800.

Now don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed both of these books, and I would recommend you go buy both, as well as American Gods and Virgin Suicides (their other marvelous books). But I find it odd that at a mere 100 pages more, Middlesex feels like I read two or three books, and that lives were changed in the process. Anasi Boys could have been a graphic novel. I feel like I've ordered desert with my husband and he's ordered a souffle and I a flourless chocolate torte can I can't figure out why he's finished his and is now starting to work on mine. Middlesex is dense. But not dense like Chauser, it's very easy and pleasureable to read. It's just the Gaimen book feels like someone has beaten air into it for 20 minutes, like you see on a cooking show.

Neither has filler, neither has useless scenes, neither is written in a overly formal or inaccesable style. So why the difference? What makes a "fast read" a fast read?

Oh, and one more time, go buy Middlesex, best book I've read since Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, which was easiely the best book I'd read in years....

I'm still in a state of never reading just one book. In fact, I'm pretty sure except for when I'm traveling, I never will be. Right now I'm 1/3 of the way through two books, and done with the third. Paradox of Choice and We the Media have something in common: the first third is endless repetitive examples of their "big" point. In We the Media's case, it's all about how new technology is disrupting old media, in Paradox of Choice it's all about how too much stuff sucks. Of course if you hadn't heard of SMS or blogs or wikis, We the Media could be facinating. And if you are already a "kill old media" fanatic, it would be satisfying. But if you are a tech savvy individual with a middle of the road attitude about new media and old (as Dan Gilmore, is apparently) you might think, hey, let's get on with it? What is the solution? What's next?

With Paradox of Choice, I'm nerveous there is no answer. Noise just gets louder, as we buy Real Simple magazine and retreat to Pottery Barn for mock rustic reminders of simpler decades.

I'm hoping the authors get from shoring up their problem statement with examples and get to the payoff soon. Admittedly, because of their approach, both books are great resources for examples, so if you need to make either of those points with your boss, you should get these books.

I'll report back when I'm farther along, perhaps when I've hit a solution...

Finally, Astonishing Stories rocks. I remember one summer I was at my grandparent's cottage, and I was laying in bed, next to my sister, bored, too hot to sleep, and I turned on the radio (an ancient-yet-perfectly-preserved 1950's thing, like everything in their cottage). Out of the radio came a radio play, The Masque of the Red Death read-- I remember-- by Vincent Price or his voice double. I shivered in the heavy heat as the story terrified me, even at one point reaching out to hold sweaty hands across the distance between the twin beds with my sister (unheard of, since we mostly fought in those days). Everytime we went back, I'd fiddle with that radio, trying to recreate that delicious moment.

Astonishing Stories made me feel like that again. A couple stories got me shivering with fear. For some reason, the sequel is much more oriented to horror than its excellent predecessor, Thrilling Tales. But it's good. It's hide under the bed covers with flashlight good. It's read in your tree house, and chase lightning bugs after good. It's well written enough for a grownup, but speaks directly to the kid in you. And that's worth 12 bucks.

A while back I was reading Working Knowledge in which Davenport wrote "Intuition is compressed knowledge." That phrase stuck with me as a true thing.

Now Malcolm Gladwell's new book Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking shows how right-- and how wrong-- that can be. I don't have to tell you to buy it: it's already number two on Amazon's bestsellers list (after the yet-to-be-published Harry Potter book. Someday somebody tell me how that can be so). It's a wonderful exploration of one of my favorite themes, our gut reactions, and definitely a must-buy. While the prose is not quite as elegant as The Tipping Point's, it's still a deftly written and compelling book.

It's got me thinking once again about the care and feeding of our gut. In January's HBR, they reprint Peter Drucker's classic article Managing Oneself (also available in the wonderful collection Harvard Business Review on Managing Your Career) which gives us a hint on how to make that possible...

In this article, Drucker says

"The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations. I have been practicing this method for 15 to 20 years now, and every time I do it, I am surprised. The feedback analysis showed me, for instance — and to my great surprise — that I have an intuitive understanding of technical people, whether they are engineers or accountants or market researchers. "

Although he sees it mainly as a way of getting to know himself, it is also a practice that is changing him. That "intuition" he speaks of is just "compressed experience" reinforced by his tracking practices, and by by tracking each decision, he is training his gut to become smarter and smarter.

Our metaphorical gut is like our real one. Everything we feed our gut makes us who we are. Spinach and steak, one thing. Taco Bell and Coke, another. Hemmingway and Gladwell, one thing. Spiderman and Rose Tremain, another. (before you start screaming, I read all of these).

When I want to improve my writing, the first thing I do is change my reading. When I was younger, I used to write exactly like whomever I was reading. Now my influences are varied enough that I don't unconsciously mimic voice anymore, but I do notice the level of effort rises to the quality of the materials I consume. After a week of reading the New Yorker, I'm using complete sentences once again.

Gladwell talks in Blink about how John Bargh did a set of studies in which people who took tests in which words reinforcing politeness or suggesting old age were embedded. Participants actually had their behavior changed afterwards (to the point that people exposed to old-age words actually walked more slowly, as if they were old). The implications this has on how we care for our guts are eye opening. What price are you paying for a night of American Idol?

As humans, we are naturally adaptable. We can ignore that and let the world have its way with us, or we can harness it and become our best selves.

Excerpt from Comic Wars, a book on Marvel Comic's near bankruptcy and uncanny recovery:

"[Jim] Shooter had a huge impact during his nine-year run as editor. He pushed Marvel's corporate owners to introduce good medical insurance and a system of royalties, sharing the wealth if a comic book sold more than one hundred thousand copies. The quality of the books noticeably improved, as did sales. Marvel commanded 70 percent of the marketplace, and some of the writers and artists were earning over half a million dollars per year.

Shooter said that the old way, simply paying a set fee per page, discouraged anyone from taking more time and care to produce a terrific page "I started finding ways to get people more money, to find better creative people and hold on to them. Because the problem is that an artist started to get good but he couldn't make enough money in comics, so he'd go off into the advertising business. And you'd loose them."

Why should a designer or IA learn about business? I can hardly think of a better example than the one described above. Without an understanding of business practices, a terrific creative (like Jim Shooter's predecessor Stan Lee) can't make meaningful change in the quality of a product.

Making good work isn't just about loving what you do; it's also about feeding your family while you do it. Stress about health insurance, making rent, paying your bills can drive even a fierce comic fan into a new line of work. What is so impressive about Shooter's model is it not only rewarded good work, but created a star system which fed the dreams of young artists, encouraging them to starve awhile until they could make it big. The promise of a big payoff is critical to a talent-based line of work.

How are people motivated to do excellent work in your company?

Are they?

Is excellence rewarded or reliable mediocrity?

Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives
It's too late to order this and get it before the election-- and honestly, it wouldn't matter if you could. Tuesday is too soon to change much. But you should still buy this book right now and read it, because the conversations you have over the next four years could shape the next one.

George Lakoff has been talking about framing since '96, but only now has it started taking hold in the progressive imagination as a way to take back American values -- liberty, equality, freedom-- from the conservative stronghold that distorts those values into liberty to invade anyone who we don't like, equality for the rich to manipulate the system to get richer and avoid responsibility to the very system that provides the infrastructure that allowed them to become rich, and freedom to destroy the future of the country by endangering American industry through an uneducated workforce by providing education only to those who can pay for it.

The mind is full of shortcuts that normally make us more efficient in our daily lives, but can be also exploited: one example is frames. Frames are short phrases that stand for a body of thinking. Conservatives use them them when they speak of "tort reform" "tax relief" "voter revolt." It's all about language-- when "tax evasion" is reframed by conservatives as "tax relief" there is no way a progressive can argue against "relief." But we can talk about responsibility, we can talk about repaying our debts, we can talk about fairness. We can talk about the fact that thriving companies thrive on what taxes have bought for them. Lakoff writes:

Corporations, businessmen, and investors benefit from taxpayer investments most of all. Taxpayers have paid for our financial institutions: the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, our national banks, and the courts, 90 percent of which are used for corporate law. If you want to start a business, you don't have to build highways, invent computer science, construct the Internet, train your scientists, build a banking system, build and maintain a court system. The taxpayers have done all that for you.

You see, there are no self-made men. If you make a bundle in business, it was made possible by taxpayer investments. The rich have gotten more dividends; they should pay for the investments that make their businesses possible. It's only fair.

I used to be afraid to blog on politics, because I was afraid of the debate. I'd feel so angry and so helpless. But now I know why it was so hard to argue-- I didn't have the right language, and I was making the same mistakes many progressives make: I was arguing within conservatives' frames. But now it's time for me to stand up for what I believe with not only the conviction of those beliefs, but the language of them.
Read an excerpt

What the CEO Wants You to Know : How Your Company Really Works should go into your carry-on next time you fly. It's the "Don't Make Me Think" for business, one of those wonderful thin books that you can read on a cross-country flight (twice, I suspect) and leaves you looking at everything you do a bit differently.

The author starts slow and easy, explaining why cash is critical, and how even the mailroom guy can affect the stock price. He uses the street vendors from his native India to explain the critical factors in a business's health, and guides you steadily to the point where you can actually do some financial modeling. If you are a designer, or another professional who missed out on business 101 (shut up and draw!) this is required reading. If you are lucky enough to have gotten good business fundamentals, this is the book to give to others.

The Art of Branding is a simple slim book full of pictures and graphs that explains Brand creation and management by examining the life of Picasso, and along the way makes a convincing argument that Picasso was the master of his own brand. Recommended for the ideas, the graphs and photos, and the masterful simplicity.

Can a book be deeply flawed and still be worth having? The Origin of Things delights and disappoints with every page. The book consists of a collection of design objects across the years, along with the sketches and related items used to achieve their final design, and the images are fascinating. The lowly paperclip is photographed as lovingly as the Frank Lloyd Wright vase, giving the paperclip the warhol-icon treatment and revealing its inherent beauty.

The text, however, fails the magnificent objects. It's often incomplete, obtuse, or dry. The result is a tease that either makes you hunger for more, or mystifies, leaving you alone to decifer the drawings and results. Sometimes reading a dry but more complete text, one sense a thrilling story behind the design process-- such as with Wim Gilles scooterette project, in which he fought to do a personal project to build a lightweight folding scooter/moped that got to final prototype then was killed preproduction-- but the story doesn't keep up with the photographs. Not bad, but unsatisfying.

However, I've really enjoyed the book, no matter how disappointed I've been with an incomplete story, because it is so neat to look at beautiful, well crafted objects and their creation artifacts: the prototype kettle made of two pans soldered together, the x-rays that informed a silverware set, the raw and elegant drawings that became Lloyd Wright's vases.

Decide for yourself.

I just read Purple Cow, which took me all of half a day. It's fast, easy, and a bit over-exuberant, but most importantly to you dear reader, it says that old marketing is dead and the secret to success is unique products and the secret to unique products is design. It even has little slogans to photocopy in the back, including one that says "Design Rules."

I feel a design renaissance coming on.

Anyhow, it's one of those books you buy for your CEO, or head of marketing, or product manager. Go evangelize, the profession needs it. And deserves it.

The book I'm foisting on my team these days is Paula Scher's Make It Bigger. Make It Bigger is immediately appealing with its odd shape, powerful use of type and wooden cover. Cracking it open, you discover Ms. Scher designed much of the imagery from the 70's-80's that you might recall, from the dubious distinction of Boston's "spaceship" cover, to the endlessly copied "Bring on the Noise, Bring on the funk" poster, to the controversial and eventually canonized Swatch-swiss poster parody. Flipping through the book it is clear the power one designer can have over how the world looks.

But more interesting to me, and the reason I keep making my designers read it, is her approaches to dealing with clients and her concept of "selling down." (poor screen shot here of one of the many wonderful diagrams she users to explain how sign-off processes work--btw, the screenshots amazon chooses to show are just appalling-- here is a book full of gorgeous colorful design and they choose a few text heavy pages? What up?). Having started her career making a design, having the assistant art director suggest changes, the art director suggest to changes, the creative directory suggest changes, the product manager suggest changes, the VP of sales make changes.. she realized she had to make changes to how she presented her designs.

The title itself -- Make It Bigger-- refers to Paula's endless battle to help clients be able to see the design clearly, and accept it without the layers of hierarchy pissing on it (my words, not hers). By end running the hierarchy and then selling down rather than up, she is able to avoid watered-down design arriving for final approval.

All of us have heard those words-- Make It Bigger, Make It Red, Put It On Top. But only a few have learned how to deal with it. In these days of designer disillusionment and rising struggle to make our work count again, Paul's book comes at just the right time. The work quickly dismisses the idea that design is irrelevant while the text and diagrams give young designers the tools they need to navigate political waters.

Persuasive Technology is in turns fascinating and sinister.
This book is a must for any designer working in the technology field. B.J. Fogg is clearly a upright fellow, yet the techniques he offers to persuade desired behavior are so clearly articulated that it is easy to see how they will be used for unethical ends.

Stanford professor Fogg lists many positive uses for these techniques, such as educating teens about domestic violence, or teaching diabetics to monitor their blood sugar levels, or getting RSI sufferers to stretch-- yet it's no effort to image the dark side. A later chapter on ethics does just that, showing his student's experiments in designing unethical tools, such a Pokémon game that coaxes personal information out of children and persuades them to bug their parents for toys.

That said, ignorance is not an option. We need to understand these methods, as designers and as users. I had never seen Amazon' Gold Box as more than a very silly bit of foolishness.. now I understand it for the highly crafted and effective sales tool it is.

Even if persuasion turns you off, you need this book for chapter 7, on web credibility. Check out the website for a taste. Design and information architecture are critical pieces in the struggle to differentiate a site from the vast number of personal sites and imitators sites... an increasingly difficult task for users.

When you finish this book, the hackles on your neck will rise, you'll feel lightly slimey-- but you will be a better designer and a smarter consumer.

What do you do when you are working on a project that takes every ounce of your brainpower? And by seven o'clock you are a shattered shell of your former self?

Go home and read comics.

Tom Strong helped me rediscover my inner gee-whiz golly self.

Compelling story, beautiful illustration, skilled writing, puzzling ending... well worth a read or four: Murder Mysteries

One of the books I used to dream of writing was "a pattern language for the web." Well, now I don't have to: The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience is that book.

As I first sat down to read it, I didn't care for it. But sitting down and reading it not the right use for it-- instead leave it on your desk and as you approach any standard web element, from log-in box to global navigation bar, crack it open. The authors have done a masterful job of listing the key problems each element addresses, and shows examples from several "best practices" websites. It's like having a competive analysis on your desk for almost everything. Esoteric issues, like my current interest (entire-web search) are not addressed, but pretty much all the common ones are, and insightfully. An excellent tool for any IA, Interface or Interaction Designer.

As I creak through the last of the book, and work on a difficult project I find myself just dang sick of IA and all things computery at the end of the day. I just finished reading The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, the last half read entirely in the back yard in the hammock and while walking around watering tomatoes-- I couldn't set it down. Not because of plot cliffhangers, which is the usual motivation for carrying a book around with me everywhere, but because I didn't want to break the spell.

It's lovely, just really lovely. Part an exploration of being allowed into a secret subculture of Paris, part a reverant rediscovery of the joy and obligation of a piano in your life, this book seduces and relaxes in such a gentle way that as you finish you feel healed-- at least I felt healed-- like spending a weekend on an island. The craft of writing is so skilled, reading it is like having a leisurely coffee with an interesting friend.

good book.

Amazon.com: Books: Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web Since I'm biased, I'll let Don Norman do my talking for me. He recently wrote this blurb after reading a late draft:

"At last, a book about the technical topics of web architecture and usability that is fun to read, informative and authoritative. Wodtke's style is that of story telling which gives the book its friendly, easy to read manner, but the stories also make clear why the principles are so important. And don't let the word "Architecture" throw you. Yes, the book is about architecture, but it is a lot more. It is how to break through the creativity block, why paper and pencil can be superior to a computer, and even how to convince your fellow workers to give you an extra two weeks of time. Easy to read, good insights, practical advice: what else do you want?"

Don Norman,
Northwestern University and The Nielsen Norman Group
Author of "The Design of Everyday Things

You can also check out the book site and the book review.

My latestest entry in the favorite slim book category is Rapid Problem Solving With Post-It Notes. While it is aimed at business types solving business problems, its application to designing content architecture is readily apparent. It's very simple, can be read in about an hour, and is a wonderful way to expand your diagramic vocabulary.

Finally got around to finishing Sorting Things Out (thanks Caltrain!) and I have mixed feelings. It is desperately boring for long stretches. And then it is seat-fixing in others. The chapter on apartheid alone deserves a double latte in borders to accompany a long peaceful read. The chapter on tuberculosis requires a double latte also-- to stay awake to read it. But overall I highly recommend it to anyone who classifies for a living. We easily forget that every act of sorting also reflects a value system that is then codified in our designs and propagated. It's a lot of responsibility.

See sample chapters

Was updating my booklist, and came across this old letter that I had been given permission to post, and yet didn't. doh!

So, without further ado, Steven Magnuson writes:

"Life: A User's Manual, George Perec
The book is apparently organized according to the architecture of the building in which the entire baseline narrative takes place. The furnishings of the building, its inhabitants, and embedded tales of their existence are exhaustively detailed. Features a convention I think many a novel lamentably lacks, an index (a comprehensive on at that, also includes an index of endo-stories, IIRC). Also wrote _A Void_ (La Disparition), a lipogrammatic detective story containing no instances of the letter "E".

Dictionary of the Khazars, Milorad Pavic
An associative narrative according to the structure of a dictionary, necessarily nonlinear, even if read in consecutive pages.

Christina notes: there seems to have been a male and female edition, the female edition is out of print. hmm

Inner Side of the Wind, Pavic
If I remember correctly, two ostensibly unrelated stories placed opposite from each other in the physical book (read one, turn book over, read other from the other direction). In the center of the book, the stories both physically and literally meet.

Landscape Painted with Tea, Pavic

Structured according to an unfinished crossword at the beginning of the book. To read linearly, or as the crossword is organized, each chapter corresponding to a vertical or horizontal index on the puzzle.

You might look at Henry Petroski's books, which center on engineering and a little bit of industrial design, but conceptually are incredibly relevant to IA. As for the linguistic and cognitive basis of IA, Eco's A Theory of Semiotics is essential (I believe Eco, that ridiculously-erudite-and-proud-of-it intellectual, did many of the translations himself!). Really, much of the more practical semiotics texts are untapped in this field. Since IA is inherently interdisciplinary and much of the canon is appropriated, thus also for the canon of semiotics, at least on the more accessible side."

Whew. I think I have my next amazon order figured out....

Thank you, Steven.

Michael B. Moore writes "A thin but very good primer on what makes good interfaces work. Even though they come from the Sun/X/Motif world their advice is platform neutral."

My two cents?

I have found too few good books on Interface Design that neatly combine theory and practice into a seemless learning and reference tool. Designing Visual Interfaces is special. It is often on my desk, the spine hopelessly cracked as it's been forced open to one page or another, post-its peering out along the edges. It belongs in the canon.

Oh those delightful and decadent Swiss. Swiss Graphic Design is eye-candy on a high level. You become better at design just flipping through the pages, and I doubt you will flip through more than ten before you drop the book to pick up a pencil.

I bought this book at an amazingly large used bookstore down in Palo Alto called "Book Buyers" (next to Printer's Ink), and got to read it over my flight to and from Portland.

Design by People for People is a terrific little book full of useful gems for people faced with the questions that arise from regular usability testing: how many participants, when to intervene in a usability test, effective think-aloud methods. However this book is written in such a straightforward and engaging manner, it's far less painful than digging through academic screeds.

It also looks at consulting issues (not to be missed -- Rubin's essay on Authentic Consulting) and even experience design.

It's not a book for you if you have never done usability testing before.. Rubin’s Handbook is better for that. But if you want to refine your skills, definitely check it out.

I was reminded of this book the other day at lunch, when a peer spoke of ways to manipulate charts to make a point. It's a playful book, full of cartoons and wink-wink you-would-never-do-this moments teaching you how to lie or spot lies built of data.

Marks of Excellence is outstanding resource for anyone seeking to understand the language of logos. It's huge, lavishly illustrated and well explained, and covers logos from their early beginnings in heraldry to modern fashions. YUM!

Soak Wash Rinse Spin: Tolleson Design is stunning. I just open it and I start to drool. Each line has purpose, meaning and elegance. This is "big d" design, and IA's and designs can learn equally from it. You may never ask if it's possible to be beautiful and usable again...

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web was the first book on information architecture as a discipline on the web, where it has come to fruition. Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville helped defined the job of IA as it exists in many organizations today.

Now, four years later, a second edition has appeared. It is richer, deeper, fuller and more than ever a necessity for Information Architects and Web Designers. Where the first edition was a primer on the basic concepts, this edition takes you deep into the subtle complexities of IA, while still written in an accessible voice. A single chapter, such as the introduction to search, can worth the price of the book alone.

This is a must-read. If you've got the first, you still need the second-- they are that different.

See also Boxes and Arrows interviews with Lou and Peter.

User and Task Analysis for Interface Design An important book for interaction designers. Task analysis provides a way to think attentively about all the tiny considerations it takes to complete a task, and design to assure user success at that task.

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones : A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings (Shambhala Pocket Classics) Okay, ignoring the issue of "are IA's interested in Zen" I'd like to point out this small book is a model of great design through koans and through exercises... talk about tailoring an interface to different kinds of learning! Plus this edition is small enough for all pockets.

Understanding Comics I know few IA's who haven't read and dug this book... unsurprising once you realize this is an intriguing meditation on the visual presentation of information... er... stories. Tasty. The companion volume Reinventing Comics is a good exploration on taking comics to the next level --online-- while keeping their core nature intact.

Visit his site and read his chess piece.

Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of UsageCentered Design (ACM Press) This is another 'everyone tells me to read it' but I haven't. So you try it. Anyone who has... send me your thoughts.

Design Patterns Ed Q. Briges writes: "although it's probably more technical than most info-architects may be interested in, the "Gang of Four" book is tremendously influential in current software architecture and design circles. In turn influenced by Christopher Alexander's notions about architecture and designing habitable spaces. After all, coders "live" in the code they're -- more often than not -- maintaining. and, the experience of dealing with poorly written software (both for a coder and a user), is not unlike trying to make sense out of a badly designed building or public space. The book itself is very usefully designed, being a highly structured catalog of patterns."

Logos: The Development of Visual Symbols Through the story of one very smart designer creating a logo for one very particular client, the author manages to cover how to handle client relations, how to keep creative juices flowing, how to move through a structured design process, and what a logo needs to do to be successful-- all without losing the narrative flow of the core story.

Corporate Identity: Making Business Strategy Visible Through Design I asked the best brand strategist I've ever met which book to read and she pointed me to this one. Lots of amazing illustrations, lots of great insights on brand beyond business. Definitely a great introductory text.

Building Strong Brands Brand, Like IA is a hard to define field and absolutely essential to a web-businesses success (to any business's success) This book explains brand in a language that anyone can understand without talking down to anyone. Truly a book for novices and experts, and that's a rare distinction. Don't trust me, have a taste.

Tibor changed the way I think about design. Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist is beautiful, playful and revolutionary. From his work with Talking Heads to his magazine "colors" his designs were insightful and relentlessly original.... If you are on a budget consider Design and Undesign, a thinner and cheaper Tibor for those seeking a "lite" survey of his work. Salon Article on his life and SFMOMA Exhibit

Designing Business Clement Mok's seminal piece that brought forward the importance of design and information architecture to a business's success.

Dig the crazy diagram on Information Architecture

Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works a great and visually lush explanation of the importance of type. If you've ever felt that times and arial are enough as font choices, read this.

If you hunger for more knowledge on type, The Elements of Typographic Style will be next on your list.

Hand book of Usability Testing You have to run your own usability testing? Buy this book. This is the single most useful resource for writing screeners and test scripts, conducting testing to get good results and analyzing the results.

Designing Web Usability Should probably be required reading for anyone who does web design. Yes Jakob is didactic, extreme and occasionally outdated. He's also insightful, inspiring and holds us all to a higher standard. Anyone working in web design today should read him, if only to decide how you relate to him.

Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability This is how it works: If you know nothing about Usability, buy Steve Krug's book. If you know a little about usability, buy Jakob Neilsen's book on design, and buy Krug's book for your boss. If you know a fair amount about usability, buy Neilsen's book on Usability Engineering, buy Krug's book for your boss and buy Neilsen's design book for the designer sitting near you (if nothing else, it'll inspire some interesting conversations.

Oh, and if you need to explain usability to anyone, you still need Steve Krug's book. His book is sensible, funny and insightful-- even if you already know everything he's saying it's still a pleasurable read.

How Buildings Learn :What Happens After They're Built is is truly amazing. Each page connects form with use, use over time, and the dangers of overspecialized shapes. Lots of relevancy to webdesign, as well as product design and anything humans have to use.

Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate I should have something insightful to say, but I don't. Buy it, read it, stay up late thinking about it.

Information Architects Pretty much before there was a web, before Jakob was going to war with design, before all that hoo-haw...
There was Richard Saul Wurman saying that someone should design information in a way people could use it, and he called this person an Information Architect. Today we might call them information designers, but still.

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How To Restore The Sanity An introduction to why software makes us batty and the fine technique of personas. The first half is a fierce and entertaining rant against current design; the second half presents an effective solution to the problem of designing technology for humans.

Follow with a chaser of About Face for understanding interface and interaction conventions from a software development point of view.

The Art & Science of Web Design Great primer on design on the web: perfect for anyone new to the medium. Jeff Veen covers aspects of web design from tech requirements through architecture to advertising online. Should be the text book for any class on web design, and provides the generalist knowledge needed for good web IA.

The Humane Interface By learning from cognitive science, we can gain a better understanding of how humans think, and build interfaces for them rather than for machines. Many common assumptions are challenged in this terrific and highly accessible book.

Contextual Design : A Customer-Centered Approach to Systems Designs All the cool kids are reading it.

Nicholas Paredes writes " I had recently read Abstracting Craft and think it goes really well with "the social life of information" and "interface culture." Many of the to topics are very similar to the social life of information, yet from a perspective which is more psycho than social in the psycho social spectrum. What is craft? how does it apply to computers as tools? how are the senses used? how can interfaces facilitate craft? ...

Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things : What Categories Reveal About the Mind An important work for content architects in particular. His Metaphors We Live by is also a key work for IA's.

Mapping Websites: Digital Media Design is porn for IA's. What we have here is a book of incredibly lovely well articulated information designs of maps of websites, from the planning documents IA's struggle with to site maps. There is a chance that you will never be able to make deadline again, just trying to make deliverables as lovely as these, but it is worth it-- why should designers get all the pretty books?

out of print

Practical Information Architecture Tim Salam wrote me "I find Eric's style of writing to be semi-casual, low on the hardcore academic spin, and with emphasis on his candid assessment on IA concepts. You know what? That's EXACTLY what I want to hear - professionals giving me straight-talk on what they think of this and that concept. That's the stuff I can run into the field with and attack a problem head on."

note: Websites have grown increasingly more complex, and while this is still a fine introduction to basic site organization, i think it is a bit out of date.

About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design Alan Cooper explains the basics of user interaction design. It was written for software, but the core is completely applicable.

Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience This is a wonderful book on how people move through websites, how they use them, read them, interact with them... and how we can design a better experience for them.

out of print if you see it used, it's a bit out of date but still interesting.

Envisioning Information
In the arena of Information Design you cannot forget the Tufte trio (though reading the first might be enough unless you are an Information Designer). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Visual Explanations : Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative His books not only explain the power of graphical representaions of information to promote understanding, but also the high price of getting it wrong.

Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication and Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers have been recommended to me by students in a class called "Communication Design for the WWW" at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Their professor, Bill Hart-Davidson, writes of the dynamics book "...also serious reading, but well worth it. I've heard it called the "Tufte of Document Design," which isn't far off."

The Social Life of Information Okay, I haven't read it, but it's a to-do. Decide for yourself. (and if you have read it, please comment on it!)