Stephen P. Anderson

This is the first book in a long time where I've made notes in the margins. I'll be going back and making more notes, too. I made the notes before I read the section that used notes in margins as one example of how we interact with information to organize and understand it.

Interacting with things to understand them is a central idea of this book. It isn't just about "Figuring it Out", it is also about figuring out how we figure things out, then turning that around to help make things and ideas that are easier to understand and figure out.

I'll give one example.

I've been working in web and site search for twenty-five years and consider myself an expert, but I learned a new and useful persepective on navigation and search. The authors map our three main tools for interacting—feet, hands, and mouth—to the techniques of navigation, manipulation, and conversation. With navigation, we move to a new space or turn to a new perspective. Things look different. Search is differentt, a kind of conversation. We say something, the search engine replies. It might be an answer, it might be an indication that we were not understood. But unlike navigation, we are still in the same place. Faceted search is powerful because it combines navigation and conversation. Move to a new perspective, then keep talking.

This book has earned a place on my shelf. Mine won't be showing up used, so you'll have to buy your own copy.

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