A solid read that attempts to dissect the success of design centric companies like Apple and Ikea. The authors emphasize ‘design as a process not an event‘ and the (somewhat clunky) idea of  ‘customer supply chain management’. The case study on Motorola was interesting. “Motorola doesn’t have a design culture. It has an engineering culture that tries to be a design culture.” I think quite a few companies fall into this category.

The book itself is well designed. Hard backed with large imprinted text on the front, it catches your attention (it caught mine in an airport bookstore while I was trying to catch a flight home). Though the stiff binding makes it difficult to read without both hands.

Fresh off my interviews with Microsoft this book was exactly what I needed to pique my interest in design. It changed the way I look at software development.

Coding Horror: Avoiding the Uncanny Valley of User Interface