Preface

Why We Wrote This Book

In this collection of essays, you will discover designers, engineers, researchers, and scientists working with groundbreaking technology, discussing their approaches to experience design. This compilation spans the technological spectrum from robotics to connected environments, 3D printing to synthetic biology, genomics to wearables. It is neither definitive nor all encompassing but rather a rare combination of vision and hard-won experience, identifying nascent domains of user experience and getting down into the primordial ooze.

Consider that when the Internet first began to proliferate in the mid-to-late 1990s, there was little definition or agreement around how design should intersect with it, the emerging technology of the time. Today, we have the panoply of design subpractices that cater to very specific areas of web creation from interaction designers to usability experts, visual designers to frontend coders. The path has been laid; the trail blazed.

If this collage of ideas around emergent technology seems diverse, it is deliberate. As designers, we must cross-pollinate, drawing our inspiration from fields we’ve never before considered, breaking down boundaries to create something new and humane. New forms of design will emerge from this multidisciplinary brew.

Who Should Read This Book

The philosopher and writer Isaiah Berlin in his work “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” described the people who excel in this type of multivariate environment, looking at many different things and approaching each situation in a new way, as “foxes.” Those who wanted to focus on only one thing, who sought orderly specialization, he referred to as “hedgehogs.”

If you’re a UX designer or engineer interested in a multidisciplinary practice, are flexible in your outlook, accepting of complexity and dissonant ideas, and never completely satisfied with the status quo, this is the book for you. We hope that you will use this book, both as a source of inspiration to look beyond the screen to the rich world of interactions and user experiences that need to be designed, and as a preliminary resource for approaches to the unique problem sets presented.

How This Book Is Organized

There are many paths through this book. The most direct route provides a diversity of technology and perspective but also moves quickly from one topic to the next, which will suit some readers, but certainly not all. If you fall into the former category, the list of chapters and summaries that follow will provide a broad and intriguing array of topics to explore. If you fall into the latter category, and prefer your reading to be focused on a particular technology or practice area, we’ve organized the chapters by category in the next section, so you can choose your own adventure through Designing for Emerging Technologies.

Here are the luminaries from whom you will hear in this book:

  • Jonathan Follett, on design for disruption and the ways in which designers can approach the power of emerging technologies, in Designing for Emerging Technologies

  • Brook Kennedy, on future materials that will enable physical products and environments to exhibit new behaviors and interactions, in Intelligent Materials: Designing Material Behavior

  • Gershom Kutliroff and Yaron Yanai, on the promise of gesture recognition, and the tricky problem of enabling our devices to understand us in the same way that other people do, in Taking Control of Gesture Interaction

  • Michal Levin, on the user experience of wearable technology, and the ecosystem for innovation inherent in an increasingly device-rich world, in Fashion with Function

  • Stephen P. Anderson, on how we might improve our learning abilities through tangible interfaces, when the physical objects with which we play are endowed with new digital properties, in Learning and Thinking with Things

  • Jeff Faneuff, on the profound challenges in the design of interaction, emotion, culture, and technology frameworks, as robots start to work side-by-side with people, in Design for Collaborative Robotics

  • Hunter Whitney, on how visualization design can help us understand things that are at seemingly impossible scale, such as neuroscience and cosmology, in Design Takes on New Dimensions

  • Andy Goodman, on the intriguing idea of embeddables throughout history as body modification, and in the future as mental and sensory prosthetics, increasing our knowledge and perception of the world around us, in Embeddables

  • Scott Sullivan, on the UX designer’s need for understanding computer science and electrical engineering, in order to achieve a level of mastery over emerging interfaces for the Internet of Things, in Prototyping Interactive Objects

  • Barry Kudrowitz, on how emergent technology might be incorporated into future playthings, and the difficulties of creating robust, low-cost products that appeal to a broad audience, in Emerging Technology and Toy Design

  • Camille Goudeseune, on the product design of musical interfaces and the deep parallels to experience design for emerging technologies, in Musical Instrument Design

  • Juhan Sonin, on the convergent technological and societal trends pushing design to the forefront of health, in Design for Life

  • Erin Rae Hoffer, on the transformation of the built environment into a networked set of data-enabled elements and devices, where interconnected and intelligent spaces will impact how people live and work, in Architecture as Interface

  • Matt Nish-Lapidus, on the core skills for designing modern networked objects and the role of the designer in shaping the future, in Design for the Networked World

  • Martin Charlier, on the necessity of being critical about new technology, in New Responsibilities of the Design Discipline

  • Scott Stropkay and Bill Hartman, on the growing influence and capabilities of robots in our work and personal lives, in Designing Human-Robot Relationships

  • Marco Righetto and Andy Goodman on the possible future manifestations of synthetic biology and the side effects produced along the way, in Tales from the Crick: Experiences and Services When Design Fiction Meets Synthetic Biology

  • Steven Keating, on the future possibilities for 3D printing technologies, including printing buildings and structurally engineering and altering color on a nano-scale, in Beyond 3D Printing: The New Dimensions of Additive Fabrication

  • Lisa deBettencourt, on ways for user experience practitioners to satisfy the need to rapidly acquire domain knowledge, in Become an Expert at Becoming an Expert

  • Dirk Knemeyer, on the evolution of the design field, in The Changing Role of Design

Chapters Organized By Subject Area

3D printing/additive fabrication

The evolution of the design field

Genomics and synthetic biology

The Internet of Things/connected environments

Product design

Robotics

Visualization

Wearable Technology

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Acknowledgments

This book has been a great collaborative experience—one that has spanned multiple continents and time zones, companies, and professions—Its diversity more resembles a multidisciplinary conference than a publication. Yet, this collection simply would not exist without the efforts of all the contributors and editors who worked tirelessly over the past 16 months to produce something so unique and forward looking.

I’d like to acknowledge the following people for their invaluable contributions:

  • The visionary team of editors at O’Reilly for pushing this forward: Mary Treseler, Brian Anderson, and Angela Rufino

  • The unsung contributing editors for their advice, outreach, and evangelism: Lisa deBettencourt, Erik Dahl, Matthew Holm, Dirk Knemeyer, and Scott Sullivan

  • The peer reviewers for their feedback, critique, and helpful suggestions, especially Karl Fast

  • The team at Involution, past and present: Juhan Sonin, Danielle Monroe, and Quentin Stipp for his lovely illustrations for my chapter

  • Saul Kaplan for writing the Foreword and inspiring others to innovate

  • And, most important, for her endless encouragement, my wife Jennifer

The adventure is just beginning...

—Jonathan Follett

@jonfollett

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