The UX Book Club concept has been discussed a lot over the last week or so on various mailing lists. This is what Steve Baty had to say about it:
A UX (User Experience) Book Club is a get-together in which people interested in the area of user experience come to discuss a book relevant to the discipline.
A UX Book Club would operate as follows:
Everyone who attends needs to read the nominated book (you won’t be barred from entry, but it helps everyone get more out of the night);
Everyone needs to jot down and bring along: 2 things in the book that really struck a chord; and 1 thing they either hated, disagreed with; or don’t understand.
The book would be within the practice of user experience, which might include books like Indi Young’s Mental Models; Dan Saffer’s Design Gestural Interfaces; Todd Zakiwarfel’s Prototyping; and classics such as Don’t Make Me Think; the Inmates Are Running the Asylum; etc.
The book should not be arduous to read!
Next Month’s book will be announced at the current meeting.Communication via twitter & through mailing lists like IAI-members, IxDA and some of the LinkedIn groups dealing with UX and/or IA.
In keeping with the book-club theme the location would be somewhere like a wine bar or a bookstore. The important thing is that the noise level has to be low, and be able to accommodate a group of 15-30 people.
To provide some added interest (and help visualise the topic), each book might - where appropriate - include a film reference to watch along with reading the book. So, for example, Todd’s book on prototyping - or Buxton’s book on sketching - might be read in conjunction with a viewing of IronMan. Dan Saffer’s book on gestural interfaces might be read in conjunction with a viewing of Minority Report or Quantum of Solace. People would be instructed to watch the film with the topic of the book in mind. An alternative - if a venue could be found - would be to show parts of the movie at the book club meeting, but I think it’s more managable if people watch it themselves.
There is now a wiki at uxbookclub.org for contacts and discussing the concept. If you are interested, add your name here.
Now… to the year that was. I would like to thank the following people and organisations:
- Jessica Enders for coordinating through the year and sponsoring drinks/nibbles,
- SMS Management and Technology for sponsoring for the last couple of years until this was no longer possible,
- Stamford Interactive for providing a venue, drinks, and nibbles,
- Ipsos-Eureka for providing us with a venue, and
- Julie Hale and Donna Spencer for planning and direct assistance to keep things going.
If I’ve missed anybody, my apologies, please let me know.
We had a good year, with a lot of notable talks - my favourites personally were probably Jessica Enders on form design, Darren Menachemsen on Visualisations, and Dean Klemick on data visualisation. These were notable for both the quality of the presentations and the discussion that they engendered.
Going into next year, we need to think about how we continue as a group - venues, sponsorship, how we work with UXBookClub (or not), all that. If you’re coming to the End of Year drinks this afternoon we can chat about it then 
And in closing, I would like to wish you all a Happy Silly Season and a good 2009.
PS: one more thing - don’t forget WebBlastCanberra08 (register here) is on Friday 5th December. It is definitely free
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