You’ll also be able to “fix” a broken workshop that you’ve been saddled with. While the first attempt at a new workshop is never perfect (testing and refinement matter), it should still be good enough that both clients and attendees leave happy, and that you get invited back. Throughout this book, you’ll also gain the skills and knowledge such that if something goes wrong, you’ll understand what’s happening and how to fix it. Whether workshops are your whole world or just a small part of it, we can help you succeed. Over the last 15 years, we’ve now designed and run a huge number of successful workshops (and a few major flops) covering every type of audience: executives, undergrads, MBAs, disadvantaged youths, busy professionals, and more. We’ve designed everything from 20-minute teasers to 3-month intensives, in locations ranging from Costa Rica and Qatar to London and Berlin. We’ve taught for companies like HP and Deloitte and for universities like Oxford and NYU. We’ve built workshops for every price point, from free upskilling (paid for by the state or employer) through to $4000-per-seat premium events. We’ve taught casual sessions, with beer in hand and flip-flop on foot, through to formal, posh affairs with glitzy venues and high-end catering. In every case, no matter where it was located or who it was for, the process outlined in these pages worked. Perhaps most importantly, we can teach you how to do this. And you don’t need to turn into some kind of charismatic superstar for it to work. In fact, you don’t even need to be particularly confident. You only need to know how to design a good workshop. We’ve trained up teachers from scratch who are now billing upwards of $2500 per day and getting invited back to teach again and again. This stuff isn’t complicated. You can learn it and you can do it.

    With step-by-step guidance, Validating Product Ideas shows you how to tackle the research to build the best possible product.

     Universal Methods of Design serves as an invaluable compendium of methods that can be easily referenced and used by cross-disciplinary teams in nearly any design project.   Methods and techniques are organized alphabetically for ongoing, quick reference. Each method is presented in a two-page format. The left-hand page contains a concise description of the method, accompanied by references for further reading. On the right-hand page, images and cases studies for each method are presented visually. The relevant phases for design application are highlighted as numbered icons along the right side of the page, from phases 1 (planning) through 5 (launch and monitor).Build more meaningful products with these methods and more: A/B Testing, Affinity Diagramming, Behavioral Mapping, Bodystorming, Contextual Design, Critical Incident Technique, Directed Storytelling, Flexible Modeling, Image Boards, Graffiti Walls, Heuristic Evaluation, Parallel Prototyping, Simulation Exercises, Touchstone Tours, and Weighted Matrix.  This essential guide:Dismantles the myth that user research methods are complicated, expensive, and time-consumingCreates a shared meaning for cross-disciplinary design teamsIllustrates methods with compelling visualizations and case studiesCharacterizes each method at a glanceIndicates when methods are best employed to help prioritize appropriate design research strategiesUniversal Methods of Design is an essential resource for designers of all levels and specializations.

    Burn Your Portfolio teaches the real-world practices, professional do's and don'ts, and unwritten rules of business that most designers, photographers, web designers, copy writers, programmers, and architects only learn after putting in years of experience on the job.Michael Janda, owner of the Utah-based design firm Riser, uses humor to dispense nugget after nugget of hard-won advice collected over the last decade from the personal successes and failures he has faced running his own agency. In this surprisingly funny, but incredibly practical advice guide, Janda's advice on teamwork and collaboration, relationship building, managing clients, bidding work, production processes, and more will resonate with creative professionals of all stripes.

    Until now, all it's been missing is a manual. With this thorough, jargon-free guide, you'll learn how to build web apps that include video tools, dynamic drawings, geolocation, offline web apps, drag-and-drop, and many other features. HTML5 is the future of the Web, and with this book you'll reach it quickly.The important stuff you need to know:Structure web pages in a new way. Learn how HTML5 helps make web design tools and search engines work smarter.Add audio and video without plugins. Build playback pages that work in every browser.Draw with Canvas. Create shapes, pictures, text, and animation—and make them interactive.Go a long way with style. Use CSS3 and HTML5 to jazz up your pages and adapt them for mobile devices.Build web apps with rich desktop features. Let users work with your app offline, and process user-selected files in the browser.Create location-aware apps. Write geolocation applications directly in the browser.

    Divided into three parts, this book offers a methodology for artistic and professional work and also offers technical advice for translating this to the web.

    They think that UI design is like graphic design--the mysterious process by which creative, latte-drinking, all-black-wearing people produce cool-looking, artistic pieces. Most programmers see themselves as analytic, logical thinkers instead--strong at reasoning, weak on artistic judgment, and incapable of doing UI design.In this brilliantly readable book, author Joel Spolsky proposes simple, logical rules that can be applied without any artistic talent to improve any user interface, from traditional GUI applications to websites to consumer electronics. Spolsky's primary axiom, the importance of bringing the program model in line with the user model, is both rational and simple.In a fun and entertaining way, Spolky makesuser interfacedesign easy for programmers to grasp. After reading User Interface Design for Programmers, you'll know how to design interfaces with the user in mind. You'll learn the important principles that underlie all good UI design, and you'll learn how to perform usability testing that works."

    Observing the User Experience will help you bridge that gap to understand what your users want and need from your product, and whether they'll be able to use what you've created.Filled with real-world experience and a wealth of practical information, this book presents a complete toolbox of techniques to help designers and developers see through the eyes of their users. It provides in-depth coverage of 13 user experience research techniques that will provide a basis for developing better products, whether they're Web, software or mobile based. In addition, it's written with an understanding of how software is developed in the real world, taking tight budgets, short schedules, and existing processes into account.

    

    The Humane Interface is a gourmet dish from a master chef. Five mice! --Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group Author of Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity This unique guide to interactive system design reflects the experience and vision of Jef Raskin, the creator of the Apple Macintosh. Other books may show how to use todays widgets and interface ideas effectively. Raskin, however, demonstrates that many current interface paradigms are dead ends, and that to make computers significantly easier to use requires new approaches. He explains how to effect desperately needed changes, offering a wealth of innovative and specific interface ideas for software designers, developers, and product managers. The Apple Macintosh helped to introduce a previous revolution in computer interface design, drawing on the best available technology to establish many of the interface techniques and methods now universal in the computer industry. With this book, Raskin proves again both his farsightedness and his practicality. He also demonstrates how design ideas must be bui

    In Designing Design, he impresses upon the reader the importance of emptiness in both the visual and philosophical traditions of Japan, and its application to design, made visible by means of numerous examples from his own work: Hara for instance designed the opening and closing ceremony programs for the Nagano Winter Olympic Games 1998. In 2001, he enrolled as a board member for the Japanese label MUJI and has considerably moulded the identity of this successful corporation as communication and design advisor ever since. Kenya Hara, alongside Naoto Fukasawa one of the leading design personalities in Japan, has also called attention to himself with exhibitions such as Re-Design: The Daily Products of the 21st Century.

    Like an Art of War for design, this slim volume contains guidance, inspiration, and reassurance for all those who labor with the user in mind. If you work on the web, in print, or in film or video, this book can help. If you know someone working on the creative arena, this makes a great gift. Funny, too.Look for fresh aphorisms on our Facebook page.

    I loved the tutorial-style game-like program development. This book rekindled my earliest joys of programming. Plus, JavaScript!" —Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScriptJavaScript is the language of the Web, and it's at the heart of every modern website from the lowliest personal blog to the mighty Google Apps. Though it's simple for beginners to pick up and play with, JavaScript is not a toy—it's a flexible and complex language, capable of much more than the showy tricks most programmers use it for.Eloquent JavaScript goes beyond the cut-and-paste scripts of the recipe books and teaches you to write code that's elegant and effective. You'll start with the basics of programming, and learn to use variables, control structures, functions, and data structures. Then you'll dive into the real JavaScript artistry: higher-order functions, closures, and object-oriented programming.Along the way you'll learn to:Master basic programming techniques and best practices Harness the power of functional and object-oriented programming Use regular expressions to quickly parse and manipulate strings Gracefully deal with errors and browser incompatibilities Handle browser events and alter the DOM structure Most importantly, Eloquent JavaScript will teach you to express yourself in code with precision and beauty. After all, great programming is an art, not a science—so why settle for a killer app when you can create a masterpiece?

    Authors Alex Banks and Eve Porcello show you how to create UIs with this small JavaScript library that can deftly display data changes on large-scale, data-driven websites without page reloads. Along the way, you'll learn how to work with functional programming and the latest ECMAScript features.Developed by Facebook, and used by companies including Netflix, Walmart, and The New York Times for large parts of their web interfaces, React is quickly growing in use. By learning how to build React components with this hands-on guide, you'll fully understand how useful React can be in your organization.Learn key functional programming concepts with JavaScriptPeek under the hood to understand how React runs in the browserCreate application presentation layers by mounting and composing React componentsUse component trees to manage data and reduce the time you spend debugging applicationsExplore React's component lifecycle and use it to load data and improve UI performanceUse a routing solution for browser history, bookmarks, and other features of single-page applicationsLearn how to structure React applications with servers in mind

    did for crafters, this book will teach all types of creatives illustrators, photographers, graphic designers, animators, and more how to build a successful business doing what they love. Freelancing pros Meg Mateo Ilasco and Joy Deangdeelert Cho explain everything from creating a standout portfolio to navigating the legal issues of starting a business. Accessible, spunky, and packed with practical advice, Creative, Inc. is an essential for anyone ready to strike out on their own.