By Ian Hooper
“You joined a book club to read and discuss textbooks?” my wife asked me with something that was either incredulity…or possibly pity. When she put it that way, it did sound rather dry and dull. But the truth is I was really excited when I heard that Toronto was going to start a UX (user experience) book club.
Book clubs of all sorts are a common and popular thing. A few years ago there started a trend to have a book club centered on UX related books. When I heard about a UX book club in Toronto, I immediately joined up thinking it would give me the incentive and support I needed to get through my long reading list of work-related books.
As it turns out, the books we chose covered a wide range of topics and backgrounds (see our reading list on Amazon.com). We’ve even had some of the authors come to talk with us, or meet with us online via video chat. That is the case with the book we are reading now, Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions by Bruce Hanington and Bella Martin. On December 10 we will be hosting the authors via Skype at the Toronto Autodesk office. We are all looking forward to having this opportunity, but I am especially excited because Bruce Hanington and I were in the same year at the University of Calgary where we studied Industrial Design. Far from being dry, this book club is improving my social life by reacquainting me with an old friend.
I’ve already found the Universal Methods of Design to be a really interesting book, but I will save the book review until my next blog post. In that article I’ll share my thoughts on the book, the reaction of the rest of the book club, and what insights we learned from the authors.
If you are in the Toronto area and are interested in joining us for our book review, come to our King Street office on December 10th at 6:30pm.
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