Interaction design for multimedia and the web

"A nice, non-technical discussion on how to design an interactive system ... Barfield goes easy on the jargon. Not your typical acronym-laden computer book."
Wes Boudville (Caltech)

New media is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. We know all about the separate pieces: sound, animation, text, video … but the challenge is putting the pieces together to give us the big picture of new media design. In this book Lon Barfield takes the reader on a journey through the fundamentals of interaction design for the web and cd-rom, dealing with those key ingredients and the ways in which they are brought together into an interactive whole.

Design for New Media will be essential reading for students examining design and interaction design principles in their studies. It it suitable for courses and course modules in multimedia design, web design and any design discipline that involves design for use.

Four sections cover the elements of media design, showing the part they play in new media design as a whole. Starting from an examination of new and developing technology, the book moves on to look at the building blocks of new media. Interaction design follows, bringing these building blocks together, and the process concludes with with a discussion of the process of design itself.

Throughout the book, design is seen as an active process. To support this, exercises are included in each chapter, both to test knowledge and also to stimulate group design projects. Extensive use is made of real world illustrations of interaction design to clarify and illustrate the concepts in an accessible and amusing manner.

This book is published by Addison Wesley 2004. (ISBN: 0201596091)

Web site to support readers of this textbook. (Only useful to those with the text book). Now has downloadable handouts and pictures.