January's book (Understanding Context), date, and venue

[fstorr]

Hi, all

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving and that the weekend wasn't too busy. Okay, here's the details of January's book, which I'm really excited out. We're going to be reading Understanding Context by Andrew Hinton. Here's some blurb:

"Technology is destabilizing the way we understand our surroundings. From social identity to ubiquitous mobility, digital information keeps changing what here means, how to get there, and even who we are. Why does software so easily confound our perception and scramble meaning? And how can we make all this complexity still make sense to our users? Understanding Context offers a powerful toolset for grasping and solving the challenges of contextual ambiguity. By starting with the foundation of how people perceive the world around them, it shows how users touch, navigate, and comprehend environments made of language and pixels, and how we can make those places better."

The book is due for release on 22nd December, but you can buy an "Early Release" version of it right now at the publisher's site. An early release book is a copy that's still being completed. As the author writes more and sends it to O'Reilly, you get to download the updates, and once the book is complete you'll get the final version. It looks like O'Reilly is having a Cyber Monday sale that ends on 2nd December—if you take advantage of that, you'll get 50% off the cover price. If you're a CHIFOO member, you can get year-round discount at O'Reilly's site (which has saved me a load of money over the years).

We're going to be talking to Andrew via Skype, so it's going to be an excellent discussion on something that plays a huge part in designing modern sites and applications. If you've ever read any of Andrew's work, you'll know he is a super-smart information architect with a lot of experience.

Where to get the book

The publisher's site: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920024651.do

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Context-Environment-Information-Architecture/dp/1449323170/

Powell's: http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781449323172-0 (for some reason they're displaying a different cover)

Where and when

Date: Thursday 22nd January, at 6PM (note: you won't be able to get into the building after 7PM)

Where: Mozilla's offices in The Pearl

Calagator: http://calagator.org/events/1250467438

Hope to see you then.

Regards

Francis