This ebook has taken far too long to write but at last it is finally finished. The beauty of self-publishing is also the major problem with it – nobody pushes you, you aren’t paid and for all you know nobody will read it once it’s published. I wanted to see how the many different aspects of the book may develop conversations within the user experience community.
Elements of the book have already aged, but the principles continue, even though the examples may not! However, I hope you enjoy the read and I am really interested to know your thoughts, either here or on twitter. Currently it is only an ePub available for mobile devices but if the demand is there, other versions will be made available.
Download Six Circles for Epub readers
(See the comments section below for browser-based ePub readers)
Some accompanying thoughts
In the last year I have seen how the different elements of the Six Circles transcend user experience, into the fields of brand strategy, service design and customer experience. It is my view that in ten years time we will be talking about what we do today in very different terms due to the contexts that we have to design for, using technology that is only beginning to become pervasive in our physical environment. I predict that UX and Service Design will cease to be differentiated, as they will be so entwined it would be too difficult, and potentially inefficient to separate into different disciplines.
I have seen enough of touch and tablet usage, mobile devices, ‘Everyware’ (and even Microsoft’s shift of it’s Windows 8 platform towards the touch paradigm) to feel that we are in for an exciting decade ahead.
Call it the legacy of Steve Jobs, but what he has left us with is a global population who are more instantly engaged with technology than we could have imagined ten years ago. To allow the very young and very old to interact with content through the same device is a stunning achievement, and for the interface and interaction designers to be able to support a richer experience is truly exciting.
Unfortunately companies are still catching up, fearful of failure and what they perceive as risk. Watching their competitors to see who makes the first move but the time for businesses to be brave and bold is now. There is not much time remaining for some businesses to make use of the power of meaningful, rich experiences delivered by brands that satisfy the culture and contextual uses of the users. Those companies that achieve this will simply dominate at a rate that is faster due to the networked society.
But all the talk of technology misses the point. It is the human needs, desires and emotions and their interactions with each other that create our insights that in turn drive innovation and success for companies. These experiences make the difference. It is the quality of experience that is the differentiator for any company in a crowded market.
Solving people problems will inevitably solve business problems. The challenge is to get businesses to believe in it, and trust those to deliver on the promise of user centred design. But with a process that is understood and a philosophy that appeals to many, there is alot we can do to ensure the business world adopts a path to greater product development, that builds on the needs and wants of people at its core.Tweet
Service design is already intertwined with UX in a lot of companies. I think that trend will continue. The way design is being taught is back to the principals and origins of design thinking and nit about the tools. The tools do not matter as they will change and changes are happening faster. The pace is increasing. A more adaptive model is needed.
I completely agree that technology talk misses the point.
To help spur adoption, you might consider pointing folks to a couple options for popular, costless epub reading tools. After downloading, I have no software installed that can open the file. Many will give up. I will make the effort to hunt…
Hi
@ReaderX – Sorry for Epub – I opted for Mac first – a bit biased I know! However you can use http://www.magicscroll.net/ as a Chrome plugin or for Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/epubreader/.
I will be doing a PDF version soon and also other devices if I get over a certain amount of downloads.
@Wndahl Completely agree on this and the ‘adaptive model’ is key.
Sorry for the ePub ?? “Mac first” ? But ePub is the only free open standard for eBooks, so this choise seems to be the best possible. Compatible with most eInk based reader, and freely readable on every platform …
Thank you very much for this eBook !!!
.mobi for those of us with Kindles would be great!
@yehuda Thanks for the information!
@sean .mobi next
[...] Six Circles – An experience design framework (free book) ; [...]
Thanks for the book James, sat and read it this morning. Good stuff in there that as a front end web designer reminds me of the complexities of what we set out to do.
One thing to note is that the PDF version has a duplicate page 15/16, one extra last para on the 16th but otherwise they look identical.
Thanks again, I certainly appreciated it.
Thanks Matt for the information – just fixed that little blip
I think that’s why I like epub better…Glad you got something out of the book.
James is progressively becoming one of the most thoughtful voices in Experience Design.
Never too academic, always challenging the status quo of the industry, this book helped me crystalize my intuitions
and instincts about the proper approach to design (whether it’s web design, product design or something larger).
While it’s doubtful James looks forward to writing a following edition, I’ll continue to look forward to more brilliance from his corner for the forseeable future.
Thanks Ashley! You are right – there will not be another edition
However I will be blogging more this year about design practice. Cheers again
[...] Six Circles – An Experience Design Framework James Kelway из компании User Pathways опубликовал свою книгу о проектировании интерфейсов, созданную на основе публикаций в блоге за последние несколько лет. Она описывает методы и практики, теоретические выкладки и массу другой полезной информации по теме. Прямая ссылка на PDF (16 МБ). [...]
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