What s Not in This Book?

What's Not in This Book?

This book is, first and foremost, about how to define problems. All the techniques are geared toward getting a better understanding of people and their problems. It's not about how to solve those problems. Sure, sometimes a good problem definition makes the solution obvious, but that's not the primary goal of this text.

I strongly believe that there are no hard and fast rules about what is right and what is wrong when designing experiences. Every product has a different set of constraints that defines what is "right" for it. A videogame for preschoolers has a different set of constraints than a stock portfolio management application. Attempting to apply the same rules to both of them is absurd. That is why there are no guides for how to solve the problems that these techniques help you to define. There are no "top 10" lists, there are no "laws," and there are no heuristics. Many excellent books have good ideas about how to solve interaction problems and astute compilations of solutions that are right much of the time, but this book isn't one of them.