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NEW BOOK FROM INDUSTRY GURU IS AN ILLUMINATING GUIDE TO BUILDING SUCCESSFUL SOFTWARE
Follow-up to the classic THE ART OF COMPUTER GAME DESIGN
In 1979, Chris Crawford was a pioneer in the computer game development community. The creator of one of the first computer war games, Crawford sold it to a handful of computer stores, distributed in hand-stuffed plastic bags. "Those early days were exciting--the few participants all knew we were building a revolution," Crawford notes. Thirty years later, he has brought everything he has learned about creating good, interactive games, software, and websites together in one book: THE ART OF INTERACTIVE DESIGN (No Starch Press)."Interactivity is at the very essence of computing, and yet few people understand its fundamental concepts," says Crawford, also author of the classic The Art of Computer Game Design (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1982). His new book is a non-technical tome about the theory of interactive design. "In trying to design software, most people focus their energies on 'features' and graphics, but these aren't as important as interactivity."
THE ART OF INTERACTIVE DESIGN demonstrates what interactivity is, why it's important, and how to design interactive software, games, and websites that work. Crawford's mellifluous style makes for fascinating and idea-inspiring reading that encourages readers to think about design in new ways. "[Crawford] could have written a book like 'Ten Easy Steps to Making Your Programs Easier to Use,'" says Dale Yocum, the founder of Clientele Software. "Instead, he's moved up a level and explored the Zen of interactivity. . . . Chris makes a difficult, nebulous topic approachable."
"Computers suck," says Crawford. "They don't do what you want them to do and they often do what you don't want them to do. And it's all attributable to unintentional design errors." He adds, "I wrote this for everybody involved -- directly or indirectly -- in software design."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Crawford, a former game developer, is the author of the classic The Art of Computer Game Design (Osborne/McGraw-Hill), and the founder of the Game Developers Conference. Crawford lectures at conferences and universities around the world. He is currently at work on Erasmatron, an interactive storytelling project.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
* Find out more about the author at http://www.erasmatazz.com/
* Look at the table of contents for THE ART OF INTERACTIVE DESIGN at http://www.nostarch.com/interactive_toc.htm