Making Things Talk: Practical Methods for Connecting Physical Objects Review

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(More customer reviews)When I first heard about this book, I assumed it was about projects for speech synthesis. When I read the details on the publisher's site I was somewhat disappointed - talking meant communications in this case. However, I ordered it anyway and was quite delighted by the results. The book is well illustrated, well written, and contains 26 very interesting projects. If you are teaching networking to high schoolers or even to college students, these projects might make interesting case studies to drive home some of the points being studied.
There is one thing I would caution you on though. Don't expect the lead-you-by-the-hand electronics-heavy methodology of most other project books. This book - although apparently targeted at electronics hobbyists - goes into painstaking detail on hardware needed and assembly. However, it oddly assumes the reader doesn't need much coaching on the Processing programming language or PHP. Of course, this book would be an unwieldy tome if tutoring on those subjects were included, but just be warned that you'll need some outside sources if you are not already familiar with either of these languages. The following is the list of contents of the book along with the names and locations of the 26 included projects.
1. The Simplest Tools
2. The Simplest Network
Project 1 - Monski Pong
Project 2 - Wireless Monski Pong
Project 3 - Negotiating in Bluetooth
3. A More Complex Network
Project 4 - A Networked Cat
4. Look Ma! No Computer
Project 5 - Hello Internet
Project 6 - Networked Air Quality Meter
5. Communicating in (Near) Real Time
Project 7 - A Networked Game
6. Wireless Communication
Project 8 - Infrared Transmitter-Receiver Pair
Project 9 - Radio Transmitter-Receiver Pair
Project 10 - Duplex Radio Transmission
Project 11 - Bluetooth Receivers
7. The Tools
Project 12 - Reporting Toxic Chemicals in the Shop
Project 13 - Relaying Solar Data Wirelessly
8. How to Locate (Almost) Anything
Project 14 - Infrared Distance Ranger Example
Project 15 - Ultrasonic Distance Ranger Example
Project 16 - Reading Received Signal Strength Using XBee Radios
Project 17 - Reading Received Signal Strength Using Bluetooth Radios
Project 18 - Reading the GPS Serial Protocol
Project 19 - Determining Heading Using a Digital Compass
Project 20 - Using an Accelerometer
9. Identification
Project 21 - Color Recognition Using a Webcam
Project 22 - 2D Barcode Recognition Using a Webcam
Project 23 - Reading RFID Tags in Processing
Project 24 - RFID Meets Home Automation
Project 25 - IP Geocoding
Project 26 - Email from RFID
A. And Another Thing
B. Where to Get Stuff
C. Program Listings

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Building electronic projects that interact with the physical world is good fun. But when devices that you've built start to talk to each other, things really start to get interesting. Through a series of simple projects, you'll learn how to get your creations to communicate with one another by forming networks of smart devices that carry on conversations with you and your environment. Whether you need to plug some sensors in your home to the Internet or create a device that can interact wirelessly with other creations, Making Things Talk explains exactly what you need. This book is perfect for people with little technical training but a lot of interest. Maybe you're a science teacher who wants to show students how to monitor weather conditions at several locations at once, or a sculptor who wants to stage a room of choreographed mechanical sculptures. Making Things Talk demonstrates that once you figure out how objects communicate -- whether they're microcontroller-powered devices, email programs, or networked databases -- you can get them to interact. Each chapter in contains instructions on how to build working projects that help you do just that. You will:

Make your pet's bed send you email
Make your own seesaw game controller that communicates over the Internet
Learn how to use ZigBee and Bluetooth radios to transmit sensor data wirelessly
Set up communication between microcontrollers, personal computers, and web servers using three easy-to-program, open source environments: Arduino/Wiring, Processing, and PHP.
Write programs to send data across the Internet based on physical activity in your home, office, or backyard
And much more
With a little electronics know-how, basic (not necessarily in BASIC) programming skills, a couple of inexpensive microcontroller kits and some network modules to make them communicate using Ethernet, ZigBee, and Bluetooth, you can get started on these projects right away. With Making Things Talk, the possibilities are practically endless.

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Designing the Mobile User Experience Review

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(More customer reviews)Handheld Usability
The above link is to a book that is easily the predecessor to "Designing the Mobile User Experience." The shame of it is that Barbara Ballard and Scott Weiss did not collaborate to produce a second edition, sharing both of their insights. Instead, Ballard writes the same book, but in 2007 instead of 2002, with many of the same weaknesses, and many of the same strengths. Readers who liked "Handheld Usability" will enjoy "Designing the Mobile User Experience," but will be frustrated by the lack of detailed WAP design advice. Also missing is detailed advice for FlashLite, UIOne, SVG, tat, Java, and other environments. Ballard is a very strong writer, with very strong opinions. Fortunately, she is very smart and knowledgable, with extensive experience working at Sprint and since, providing services to Sprint. Wiley did her a disservice by printing the book in black and white, and does a crazy disservice to readers by charging so much for the book. However, designers who want to learn about mobile will benefit from this book. Experienced mobile designers will be frustrated, as they were with "Handheld Usability." Even experienced mobile designers should consider purchasing this book, as a reference and as a supplement to their own knowledge.

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Gain the knowledge and tools to deliver compelling mobile phone applications.
Mobile and wireless application design is complex and challenging. Selecting an application technology and designing a mobile application require an understanding of the benefits, costs, context, and restrictions of the development company, end user, target device, and industry structure.
Designing the Mobile User Experience provides the experienced product development professional with an understanding of the users, technologies, devices, design principles, techniques and industry players unique to the mobile and wireless space. Barbara Ballard describes the different components affecting the user experience and principles applicable to the mobile environment, enabling the reader to choose effective technologies, platforms, and devices, plan appropriate application features, apply pervasive design patterns, and choose and apply appropriate research techniques.
Designing the Mobile User Experience:
Provides a comprehensive guide to the mobile user experience, offering guidance to help make appropriate product development and design decisions.
Gives product development professionals the tools necessary to understand development in the mobile environment.
Clarifies the components affecting the user experience and principles uniquely applicable to the mobile application field.
Explores industry structure and power dynamics, providing insight into how mobile technologies and platforms become available on current and future phones.
Provides user interface design patterns, design resources, and user research methods for mobile user interface design.
Illustrates concepts with example photographs, explanatory tables and charts, and an example application.

Designing the Mobile User Experience is an invaluable resource for information architects, user experience planners and designers, interaction designers, human factors specialists, ergonomists, product marketing specialists, and brand managers. Managers and directors within organizations entering the mobile space, advanced students, partnership managers, software architects, solution architects, development managers, graphic designers, visual designers, and interface designers will also find this to be an excellent guide to the topic.

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Designing the iPhone User Experience: A User-Centered Approach to Sketching and Prototyping iPhone Apps Review

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(More customer reviews)I design and create iPhone and mobile apps for a living, so I've seen my share of carbon-copied iPhone HIG's with little thought about the user research, experience design overall device navigation. Suzanne's book is not this! She covers all of these important mobile user experience topics plus some. She starts you off with a classic interaction design approach, then dives into how these research elements apply to device design, and provides a great deal of exemplars to back up her thoughts.
For those already familiar with user experience design, Suzanne's discussion of the device capabilities, navigation and interface elements/interplay is equally as valuable. Suzanne's book actually changed the way I approached my soon-to-be-released iPhone App DrivingBuddy. You could spend hours looking for examples of well-designed mobile apps and diagnosing why exactly they are great, or you could just read Suzanne's book :)
This book is clearly written for a designerly audience, but also lays the groundwork for user experience newbies. I highly recommend this book to anyone tackling the difficult task of designing for mobile.

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"In her book Designing the iPhone User Experience, Suzanne Ginsburg takes a fresh look at cutting-edge, user-centered design from the perspectiveof designing mobile user experiences for the iPhone. Her book brings together everything you need to know to design great products for mobilecontexts."—Pabini Gabriel-Petit, UX Strategy & Design Consultant and Publisher and Editor in Chief of UXmatters"It's about time! Suzanne Ginsburg takes the best of User-Centered Design (UCD) principles and tweaks them with a dash of mobile and a lot of hintsabout what it means to implement the Apple Human Interface Guidelines for iPhone. Your idea for an iPhone app has much better chances of beingaccepted by iPhone owners (and by the iTunes watchdogs guarding entry to the App Store) if you follow even half of the suggestions in this book."—Nancy Frishberg, Ph.D., User Experience Strategist and past Chair of BayCHI



Given the fiercely competitive state of the iPhone app landscape,it has become increasingly challenging for app designers and developers to differentiate their apps. The days are long gone when it was possible to crank out an app over the weekend and refine it after receiving a few not so flattering user reviews. Users now have choices -- lots of them. If your app is difficult to use or doesn't meet their needs, finding another one is just a tap away.
To illustrate, consider the ever-growing field of Twitter clients. There are hundreds of variations in the App Store but only a handful stand out from the pack (such as Tweetie or Twitterific). For most apps, it boils down to one thing: the user experience. The same is true for countless other categories within the App Store; well-designed apps are more likely to attract and retain users. Of course there are other critical aspects of iPhone app development: the coding, the marketing, the customer support. All of the elements must come together.
Designing the iPhone User Experience will help you tackle the user experience part of the iPhone challenge. Three key themes will be reinforced throughout the book: Know thy user, the Design Lifecycle, and Attention to Detail:

Know Thy User Millions of people depend on iPhone apps to get them to work, find their next meal, and stay in touch with family and friends. Professionals of all kinds also rely on iPhone apps: doctors look up drug interactions; photographers fine-tune lighting; cyclists find the best routes. To truly understand how your apps can fit into their lives, designers and developers must learn how users do things today, what's important to them, and what needs have not been met. Part II, Introduction to User Research, will introduce a variety of user research methods.
The Design Lifecycle Award-winning designs rarely happen overnight; they usually only occur after many rigorous design cycles. To illustrate this point, consider USA TODAY's iPhone application, which went through at least seven iterations for the article view in their app. These kinds of iterations should happen before you launch your app, since it will save valuable time and money, not to mention the headaches a bad design could create for your user. More importantly, you may only have one chance to impress your users -- you do not want to sell them half-baked ideas. Part III, Developing your App Concept, will explain how to iteratively design and test your app concepts.
Attention to Detail Most professionals know that attention to detail is important, but hundreds of apps fail to incorporate even the most basic design principles. This lack of attention is not merely an aesthetic issue (which is important) it also affects the way apps function. For example, a news article without proper alignment will be difficult to read, and a poorly rendered icon will be challenging to interpret. Apps with a razor sharp attention to detail will stand out because their apps will look good and perform well. Part IV, Refining your App Concept, will show you how to make to your app shine, from visual design and branding to accessibility and localization.
Mastering these three areas will help set your app apart from the crowd. You may not have an award-winning app over night. But knowing your users, iterative design, and attention to detail are important first steps.

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