How Custom Thank-You Notes Can Improve Employee Morale

This book is in your hands (and is what it is) thanks to the efforts, influence, and support of dozens of people, so please forgive me if I’m longwinded in my thanks. Some of those people have no idea of their role in the book’s creation, starting with my parents, who had me convinced at an early age that I could do anything (except carry a tune). Longago art teacher Ron Lupton told me I should find a profession that used both my right and left brainGoodwin,” 

he said, “I don’t know how you produce such beautiful work, because you never shut up in my class.” He’s also one of the people who showed me that teaching is a worthwhile endeavor. Many colleagues and clients, at Cooper and elsewhere, have left their mark on my thinking and made me a better designer, and by now thousands of people in classes and workshops have (I hope) helped make me a better teacher. The book represents my own experience 

views; I don’t claim to speak for Cooper or anyone who works there. However, many people at Cooper have had a direct impact on the book. A design text needs to be a good example of the craft, and designers Daniel Kuo, Nick Myers, Nate Fortin, and Jayson McCauliff did an admirable job. Nick, Daniel, Rebecca Bortman, Paula Mieselman, Michael Voege, and Emily Nathan all either made my illustrations look better or contributed illustrations or photos of  

That and more in addition to cranking 

out or improving on at least a hundred fabulous illustrations, he managed the chaos of assembling the final art and touched every file to make sure it was perfect. Jayson, Daniel, Michael, Nate, and Nick also did some of the great design and research work featured in examples, as did Chris Noessel, Chris Weeldreyer, Dana Smith, Dave Cronin, David Fore, Doug LeMoine, Jonathan Korman, Lane Halley, Noah Guyot, Steve Calde, Suzy Thompson, 

and Tim McCoy. Many of them also commented on various parts of the book, as did Robert Reimann. I’m especially grateful for the close scrutiny and suggestions from Dave, Nate, Michael, and Steve, who read all or most of the book at least once. Thanks to cover girl Karen Lemen and the many others who agreed to be in photos. Of course, I also owe thanks to Alan and Sue Cooper for introducing me to Chris Webb at Wiley, for donating visual design time to 

the cause, and above all, for founding a company where great things happen. Research and design work are generally confidential, so huge thanks to Thorsten Burger of DePuy, Greg Roberts of Accu-Med, V.J. Bonnard and Paul Turner of NetApp, Chris Gielow of Cardinal Health, Chris Dollar of McKesson, Ken Hamma of the J. Paul Getty Museum, and especially John Chaffins of Cross Country Healthcare for being generous enough to share. Thanks also 

To the friends and colleagues

who participated in the example user interviews, and to Rolf Molich for sharing unpublished research. The Wiley crew has been terrific. Chris Webb not only believed in the book, but said, “Sure, you can design it,” which is a privilege I’m sure no editor grants lightly. Katie Mohr generously agreed to make the book bigger so I wouldn’t have to cut content. Sara Shlaer offered plenty of helpful comments and knew just when (and how) to nudge me about 

deadlines. Patrick Cunningham and Liz Britten have been patient with a controlfreak-author’s comments on layout. Last, but never least, I must thank family and friends. Eva Emmert provided much of my writing soundtrack. My cats helped tremendously with typing. Everyone in my life offered moral support and didn’t complain about not seeing much of me the past 18 months. Finally, I wouldn’t have made it through the book without the love and support of Bené Gatzert, whose patience, encouragement, extra chores, and occasional, well-timed 

doses of chocolate kept me going.Designing the human-facing behavior of softwarepowered systems is a relatively new discipline. As any new discipline develops, even its own practitioners are unaware of its ultimate scope, and the breadth of expertise its application requires often comes as a surprise even to its most skilled experts. It certainly surprised me to see just how deep the craft really went as we explored it. The depth of knowledge and the 

Extent of method required is significant

and it truly represents a unique discipline of some magnitude. This book is the first I’ve ever read that covers the entire spectrum of interaction design practice as a craft, including visual design and industrial design. While interaction design is a wholly new discipline, visual and industrial design are older, pre-existing fields that have been wholly transformed by digital technology. All three are given full consideration here. Others have written scholarly work on the theoretical underpinnings of software behavior, or described the visually aesthetic 

component of the field. Some others have attempted to cover the entire ground, but at one point or another, all of them take leaps of faith, exhorting the budding practitioner to “be creative” or “make it easy to use.” But practitioners need to know how to make it easy to use, and how to be creative. Gaining mastery of these tiny, creative steps is precisely the sticking point that leaves the student of interaction design unable to proceed. Kim’s comprehensive 

book never advocates such leaps without giving the reader detailed instructions on exactly how one goes about making them, and with real world examples. The primary reason why this book will change the way designers learn and practice their craft is because of the thoroughness with which it covers the great span of the field. Unlike so many of the new 

Conclusion

disciplines ushered into being by the digital revolution, the design of digital artifacts isn’t purely technical. While it is abundantly rationalist and demanding of rigor, it contains generous helpings of cognitive psychology, sociology, and ethnography. One of the reasons why it is a craft distinct from programming is simply because most programmers, who otherwise so value cross-discipline skills, are quite disinclined to include the skills of observation, interviewing, 

and analysis of the humans who will ultimately use their creations. Interaction designers need to learn the techniques and patterns that empower them to understand humans, as well as software. The wisdom and methodology set forth in this book is the product of many minds working at my company, Cooper, while operating on many client engagements, over a span of 17 years. Here at Cooper we follow a Socratic method, where, although clever answers are 

valued, discriminating questions are valued more. The dialogue is what brings forth not just solutions, but also entire frames of reference for how to approach problems in any domain and deconstruct them for solution. And we keep on learning, constantly changing and growing the method and its toolset. At times, each of us here has played the role of teacher, and each the role of student, and our attention is always on finding the underlying principles. The 

axiomatic nature of such fundamentals allows the practitioner to build his or her skill over time by seeing the common forces and patterns at work both in the man-machine interface and in the process used to create solutions for that interface. All great craft disciplines share this trait; while their essence can be expressed in a few simple aphorisms, the mastery required to put those aphorisms into practice can take years to learn and decades to masterKim