Life and Death Design: What Life-Saving Technologies Can Teach Everyday Designers by Katie Swindler

 

This book, LIFE AND DEATH DESIGN, seems to fall under the Human Factors umbrella, which is basically where psychology and engineering intersect. Designing technology and interfaces for people can be difficult, because computers are rational and algorithmic machines, and people are intuitive and emotional messes.

I work in this field and picked up a whole bunch of these types of books that I thought would be relevant and interesting for my job. I think this book will work best for people who are new to the field of psychology and don't have a lot of experience in it, bar a few introductory classes, because the case examples described in here are pretty bare bones basic.

My favorite parts of this book were definitely about the dangers of projecting your own biases in design and the importance of language when communication instruction or coaching. One of the best, most useful classes I ever took in college was actually a course in communication and technology, which covered everything from how to construct various kinds of business emails, to how to do an effective PowerPoint presentation.

I'm not sure I'd keep this book but it had some incredibly helpful lessons and ideas that I might jot down for my own reference. Books like these should be required reading for everyone in the digital age.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 out of 5 stars