Books Reviewed in This Issue

Willerton_Plain_2015 Plain language allows the reader to understand the writer’s intended meaning upon a first reading. The criteria of readability and comprehensibility do not make plain language inherently ethical, however, for content plainly described may also be of dubious morality. Yet plain language, with its emphasis on describing things in a way the audience is most likely to understand, does “support ethical action” through the “benefits it can provide in specific contexts” (p. 175). Imagine the opposite situation: jargon-like or bureaucratic language so obscure that it misleads the reader. Plain language, in contrast, demands clarity and precision, and in that sense implies an ethical obligation to the reader.

In Plain Language and Ethical Action: A Dialogic Approach to Technical Content in the Twenty-First Century, Willerton identifies a framework for diagnosing the need for plain language: BUROC, or Bureaucratic, Unfamiliar, Rights Oriented, and Critical. BUROC occurs when processes are described in great detail with little recourse to audience context (Bureaucracy); the language is rife with Unfamiliar terms; the audience’s ability to act within their Rights is compromised by linguistic confusion; and the situation is or becomes Critical.

To avoid BUROC, the writer must understand the audience through Martin Buber’s dialogic distinction between I–It—treating the other person as a means, an object, or tool—and I–Thou—treating the other person as an end, as a complex, unique individual. The I–Thou relationship occurs in what Buber calls a “narrow ridge” or “place between two sides of an argument where the parties can meet if they regard each other as Thou and not It” (p.43).

BUROC erodes the I–Thou relationship between writer and reader by not accounting for the actual situation in which the reader finds himself, as in a bureaucracy that reduces individuals to mindless functions within a system. Plain language, by insisting on the I–Thou relationship as a prerequisite for communication, sets up the basis for and prompts ethical action. Knowing that the audience needs understanding within a particular context, we are morally compelled to write in terms of that specificity and uniqueness.

Understanding the audience thoroughly is therefore the primal requirement for ethical, plain language communication and can be achieved by involving users and readers as co-creators from the beginning of the writing process. The I–Thou relationship emerges through a collaborative, ongoing feedback process that requires “strong practices for writing and reviewing” (p. 178), such as milestone checkpoints, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and testing the product on an as-you-go basis.

For plain language proponents, then, the fundamental ethical tenet is that the communicator must understand, respect, and write to the audience’s specific, unique needs and not assume what the audience is like. Thanks to its practicality, Willerton’s method can be immediately integrated with the technical writing process, empowering writers and users to work together in producing technically accurate and ethically sound documents.

Donald R. Riccomini
Donald R. Riccomini is a member of STC and a lecturer in English at Santa Clara University, where he specializes in teaching engineering and technical communications. He previously spent twenty-three years in high technology as a technical writer, engineer, and manager in semiconductors, instrumentation, and server development.

Interface Design: An Introduction to Visual Communication in UI Design

Dave Wood. 2014. London, England: Bloomsbury Publishing. [ISBN 978-2-9404-1199-3. 192 pages, including index. US$41.95 (softcover).]

Wood_Interface_2014 Interface Design: An Introduction to Visual Communication in UI Design introduces the basic principles of user interface (UI) design: user experience (UX), information architecture, and graphic design. Wood’s approach contains a few principles that can be applied to development team members, including technical writers, but its primary audience is graphic designers.

Wood opens with a chapter on basic user-centered design and the role of a graphic designer within a development team. Chapter 2 introduces information architecture structures that can be applied across different interface types (websites and video games, for example) and emphasizes iterative planning and testing to refine the information architecture. Chapters 3 and 4 delve specifically into visual communication using elements such as color, layout, and typography, and how to transmit messages and branding via those elements. Chapter 5 provides advice for working within a development team, including designing visual elements modularly so they are easier for a programmer to implement across the interface and a range of platforms. The final chapter closes with the implications of emerging technologies on the future of graphic design.

The chapters are divided into short, digestible segments with accompanying illustrations and plenty of whitespace, making the book a quick read. Each chapter ends with an interview with a practitioner whose expertise relates to the current discussion and a case study that showcases the chapter’s advice using a real-world example. This structure, for the most part, works well, and the case studies are one of Interface Design’s strongest features. At times, there is an excess of illustrations in the chapters: Some images add nothing important while a few even contradict the principles under discussion.

Another weakness in Wood’s book is that the breadth prohibits depth into any single subject. It is impossible to cover every interface development aspect in a single, short volume. However, the author’s intended audience is graphic designers, and he succeeds in detailing practical advice for that audience, especially in the book’s central chapters.

Some of Wood’s advice applies to anyone involved in developing an interface. He emphasizes focusing on your users’ goals and organizing the information architecture around them from the beginning as well as refining the structure and layout throughout the process using wireframes (diagrams of the basic layout), paper prototyping, and iterative usability testing. Another key tip is “designing for modularity,” or recognizing patterns of content (buttons, logos, background images) that are reused throughout the interface (p. 140). Breaking the design down into repeatable elements makes coding the interface easier and optimizes cross-platform display.

Although Interface Design has something to offer any development team member, it speaks best to a graphic designer because of its detailed recommendations and processes. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a general introduction to other development process aspects (such as UX and information architecture) and more detailed advice from a graphic design perspective.

Bonnie J. Shamp Winstel
Bonnie J. Shamp Winstel is a technical writer for a small software company in Huntsville, Alabama. She received her master’s degree in English and Technical Communication at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in May 2013 and is a New TC Professional member of STC.

Genetic Counseling Research: A Practical Guide

Ian M. MacFarlane, Patricia McCarthy Veach, and Bonnie S. LeRoy. 2014. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [ISBN 978-0-19-935909-7. 290 pages, including index. US$47.95 (softcover).]

MacFarlane_Genetic_2014 Genetic Counseling Research: A Practical Guide is intended as a guide for genetic counselors and genetic counseling students pursuing research in their field. It outlines the entire research process starting with formulating research questions and progressing through preparing a manuscript for publication. Accompanying many chapters are useful worksheets to help the reader through each step. Appropriate research tools and resources are also referred to along the way.

The first chapter lists seven criteria for good research questions and is supplemented by a Research Idea Log in the Appendix. Completion of a literature review follows the development of research questions. Tips are presented for finding sources with suggestions on what to do when too many or too few sources are found and advice is given on critiquing research literature for both qualitative and quantitative studies. The Ethics in Research chapter covers research integrity, the process of obtaining consent from Institutional Review Boards, plagiarism, and conflicts of interest. Choosing a paradigm is another important aspect of the research process. The authors explain both quantitative and qualitative methods and point out benefits and drawbacks of both. An overview of various sampling methods is also outlined.

The meatiest part of Genetic Counseling Research contains chapters on designing quantitative research studies and analyzing the resulting data. Particularly helpful are a Decision Making Flowchart (pp. 171–172), definitions of common statistical terms, and explanations of various statistical methods. The chapter on conducting qualitative studies discusses the philosophical underpinnings and responses to criticisms of this method. Finally, the authors lay out the process of preparing a manuscript for publication. The last chapter provides guidelines for directing research, either as a research advisor in a graduate training program or as a genetic counselor acting as a research team leader.

Genetic Counseling Research excels at defining terms and clearly explaining concepts. Another strength is that the authors do a great job of warning against common pitfalls and mistakes in research, potentially saving novice researchers in particular from major problems. Coverage of the research process is very comprehensive. I would consider it to be an indispensable resource for both genetic counselors and students wishing to embark on genetic counseling research projects.

Jennifer Spanier
Jennifer Spanier has been a freelance book and database indexer since 2009 and is an active member of the American Society for Indexing. Previously, she has worked as a biologist and a public librarian and indexes in a wide variety of subject areas.

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

Sherry Turkle. 2015. New York, NY: Penguin Press. [ISBN: 978-1-59420-555-2. 436 pages, including index. US$27.95.]

Turkle_Reclaiming_2015 Sherry Turkle is a sociologist and a licensed clinical psychologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), so when she discusses technology, she knows what she is talking about. Author of several books on the effects of technology on society, she speaks with authority and deep insight.

What concerns her most in Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age is the effect technology is having on our ability to empathize, which Turkle considers a key element that makes us human. She is not anti-technology but rather pro-conversation. Turkle thinks we must be more intentional about how we use technology and we must understand what we are losing when we abuse it, particularly with the use of smartphones.

Her book is a compilation of research based on data and conversations with students with insights of memoir tantalizingly scattered here and there. For example, Turkle learned the importance of privacy from her grandmother, who said that her mailbox and library record could never be violated.

But she worries now from so many conversations with students that the smartphone has become a “tiny god” that has robbed us of our solitude, so that people must always be “plugged in” to be “turned on.” The smartphone and other technologies have damaged our ability to have face-to-face conversations, and that has endangered the ability to empathize and therefore form friendships. And finally, it is hurting our mentoring of others so that society ultimately suffers from the loss of knowledge that is not passed on.

Turkle also has interesting things to say about punctuation that would amuse technical communicators who have been laboring over these issues for years. Punctuation is crucial in texting, where texts are often read as angry unless they are softened with emoticons and punctuation—lots of punctuation. “In texting, we’ve seen that punctuation is one of the main ways to express all of the information that tone of voice and body posture would convey in a face-to-face conversation” (p. 200).

Turkle’s audiences for Reclaiming Conversation are two-fold: one that needs to be persuaded that we have lost something and another that feels defeated but still needs to be in the conversation game. I belong to the second group, as I watch zombied young workers walk down my company’s hallways without even looking up from their smartphones and young people who don’t know how to introduce themselves at a meeting (or think that they even should). I’m very concerned that the first group will not be persuaded.

Only when technical communicators like ourselves start questioning the overreach of technology will millennials see that something is wrong. I hope others will read this crucially important book and join the fight to regain what has been lost.

Charles R. Crawley
Charles R. Crawley is a lead technical writer at Rockwell Collins and an adjunct professor at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He texts badly but is glad to have a conversation.

User Experience Design: Creating Designs Users Really Love

Gavin Allanwood and Peter Beare. 2014. New York, NY: Fairchild Books. [ISBN: 978-2-9404-9613-6. 184 pages, including index. US. $44.95 (softcover).]

Allanwood_User_2014 User Experience Design: Creating Designs Users Really Love is part of the Basics Interactive Design series that lets readers learn more about effective designs revolving around users. Allanwood and Beare state in the introduction that the book is for those who are learning about interactive design and plan to be involved in creating a product or service for other people to use. Part One introduces readers to a brief rundown of what user experience design (UXD) is and the many roles that take place within the field. The first chapter helps readers think about user experience and then progresses readers to understanding users, concluding in the final three chapters with challenging readers to recognize and apply UXD methods.

The book has many activities for readers to perform that lets them see things such as a working with a development cycle, observing a user’s journey, exploring solutions, and building a prototype. These activities give readers a chance to experience what UXD is like and how to perform it. User Experience Design concludes with design methods that discuss design patterns, layout, type, images, and toolsets to complete the projects. The book’s conclusion states that “Experiences are more important than the products or services themselves, and this has to be considered if we are going to add value to the world with our creative efforts” (p. 170).

The book leaves readers with further resources as well as a glossary to easily access new sources and terms while reading it. When working on a project, the activities, glossary, and further sources let first-time user experience designers further invest in learning more about the field and design processes.

I enjoy how Allanwood and Beare provide case studies, interviews, and activities, giving the readers a real hands-on experience in discovering how things are done within the UXD world. With these activities, readers can actually do their own user test and build their own prototype. Throughout User Experience Design, users can also complete each step just as designers would during their own design process. This book has an easy-to-read layout that can be quickly scanned to find the sections that you need. Readers can depend on the simplicity in style and the use of images to make it an easy read. User Experience Design is packed with information that will help readers learn more about designs and includes examples from real world brands.

Kristi Wiley
Kristi Wiley is currently a PhD student in Rhetoric and Writing at Michigan State University. She focuses her research on UX, content strategy, technical writing and editing, usability, and Information Architecture.

Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library

Wayne A. Wiegand. 2015. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [ISBN: 978-0-19-024800-0. 332 pages, including index. US$34.95.]

Wiegand_Part_2015 Public libraries continue to be highly regarded by Americans, even as esteem for other public institutions wanes. In Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library, Wayne Wiegand, Florida State University professor emeritus of library and information sciences, traces the history of this public institution and explores why libraries have “multiplied, survived, and regularly prospered” (p. 265).

Wiegand found in his extensive research that Americans love libraries for more than the books they provide. Part of Our Lives is divided into chapters devoted to time periods, such as the Great Depression through World War II. As his book progresses from the colonial era of subscription-only social libraries through the first municipal library established in Boston in 1854 to the present-day wired facilities, Wiegand provides myriad examples of the library’s threefold function in the community. This public institution makes useful information accessible, offers stories that influence readers’ lives, and provides public spaces where people of different cultures, genders, races, and ages congregate for many purposes. It is this combination that gives libraries their staying power and, in Wiegand’s opinion, actually helps mold communities.

While he set out to write a history from the library patron’s point of view—to “feature . . . the voices of generations of public library users” (p. 3)—Part of Our Lives is also a record of the development of the librarian as a professional knowledge worker. The juxtaposition of patron demands with the professional standards of the librarian, which were often dramatically different, provides one of the book’s ongoing themes.

Another theme is the role of technology. From the public card catalog and book-card-in-a-pocket checkout system to today’s computers that “support most of the public library’s basic routines” (p. 250), Wiegand follows changes in library operations that include taking advantage of the very electronic media some predicted would end library usefulness.

Part of Our Lives is densely packed with facts of library history, with only a few illustrations, which could have made for tedious reading. But the many anecdotes of library users—many from original sources, such as memoirs—add a liveliness to the text that makes it very readable. While Wiegand does not provide a bibliography, his sources are well documented in his notes in each chapter.

As a fan of both libraries and history, I recommend Part of Our Lives, not only for its survey of library history, but also for its look at what was happening in American society. What happened in libraries reflected social movements, such as racial integration, trends in censorship, and women’s and gay rights, as well as the political and economic milieu library patrons were experiencing. Other readers may be as surprised as I was to discover just how integral the public library has become to American life.

Linda Davis
Linda M. Davis is an independent communications practitioner in the Los Angeles area. She holds an MA in Communication Management and has specialized in strategic communication planning, publication management, writing, and editing for more than 25 years.

Facilitator’s and Trainer’s Toolkit: Engage and Energize Participants for Success in Meetings, Classes, and Workshops

Artie Mahal. 2014. Basking Ridge, NJ: Technics Publications, LLC. [ISBN: 978-1-935504-89-4, 314 pages, including index. US$29.95 (softcover).]

Mahal_Facilitator_2014 Artie Mahal’s Facilitator’s and Trainer’s Toolkit: Engage and Energize Participants for Success in Meetings, Classes, and Workshops is mostly geared toward facilitators. The author defines a trainer as “a person who teaches,” which “impl[ies] that the trainer possesses the knowledge and ‘owns’ the learning” (p. 189). Facilitators, on the other hand, “create an environment where learning can take place” (p. 189). Since I had just completed a two-week training assignment when I read this book, I found the emphasis on facilitation somewhat disappointing. However, a trainer often also acts as a facilitator, at least during the question-and-answer period of a presentation.

The book provides a variety of checklists and templates designed for freelance facilitators. These range from capturing the basics of a given assignment through preparation for the actual workshop or group session all the way to a follow-up assessment after the event. A discussion of various techniques that can be used to engage the audience, manage group dynamics, and elicit creative responses concludes the book.

Most of these checklists come from Mahal’s own work as an external facilitator and consultant. As the book title implies, much of the text is focused on practical advice. A few sections, however, also discuss more theoretical concepts, such as adult learning theory. The entire first chapter is also devoted to the “Mahal Facilitation Framework” developed by the author.

Originally from India, Mahal is keenly aware of the intercultural dimensions of group work in many companies and organizations and often points out potential pitfalls and limitations. For example, he notes, “of course, the dress code mentioned here is for Western cultures” (p. 113). As a translator who is also originally from elsewhere, I found this emphasis quite refreshing. In addition, an entire chapter by Catherine Mercer Bing is devoted to cross-cultural facilitation.

Facilitator’s and Trainer’s Toolkit is the first edition published by a small U.S. press. If there were a second edition, it would benefit greatly from more thorough editing and proofreading.

Barbara Jungwirth
After writing software documentation and managing an IT department, Barbara Jungwirth now translates German technical documents into polished English appropriate for a specific audience. She owns reliable translations llc (www.reliable-translations.com), writes a blog called On Language and Translation (www.reliable-translations.com/blog/), and tweets (@reliabletran). You can also connect with her on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/BarbaraJungwirth).

The UX Five-Second Rules: Guidelines for User Experience Design’s Simplest Testing Technique

Paul Doncaster. 2014. Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann. [ISBN 978-0-12-800534-7. 117 pages. US$24.95 (softcover).]

Doncaster_UX_2014 The UX Five-Second Rules: Guidelines for User Experience Design’s Simplest Testing Technique takes on a timely user experience (UX) topic: remote, unmoderated usability testing. Borne from a business environment where bottom lines often necessitate lean approaches to complex design problems, remote, unmoderated usability tests have been developed to take advantage of social media technologies and the pervasiveness of the data they make available. Users now freely post terabytes of information about their habits, needs, and desires online through many applications. Smart UX researchers are attempting to leverage these social habits to create simple, affordable approaches and tools that ask users to help solve design problems.

The five-second test introduced in Doncaster’s book aims to contribute a sound methodology for one specific element of remote testing: surveys that are typically tagged onto the beginning or end of tests. The author says, “A test participant is given a set of instructions, views an image of a design for a few seconds, and answers questions about it” (p. 2). Such a simple description belies a fairly elegant and rigorous approach, however, to designing these surveys. Reading The UX Five-Second Rules teaches you everything you need to know about how to design a sound user survey, including how to design sound questions, how to ensure images being tested are accessible, how to properly order survey questions to maximize response rates, and more.

Doncaster correctly asserts that user surveys, a feature included in every remote testing software application this reviewer has used (that is, UserZoom, TryMyUI, UserTesting, etc.), are often considered an add-on feature to usability tests themselves. This has rendered useless a potentially powerful tool for gaining insights into user behaviors. Part of the problem, as Doncaster points out, is that these surveys are often used when a different method might produce better results. He goes on to explain that five-second tests are only suited to very simple response situations where the user can judge in five seconds whether a design element is having its intended effect on the user. A classic example is showing a user a company logo and asking him or her to judge the logo for emotional resonance, credibility, and trustworthiness.

In an economical 108 pages, Doncaster presents some important considerations for UX researchers wishing to employ user surveys. Rather than provide an overview of the entire UX process, The UX Five-Second Rules zeroes in on one specific method and provides timely, useful advice. This book is part of a growing literature showcasing the benefits and drawbacks of specific UX methods that will hopefully encourage practitioners and researchers to refine, and ultimately systematize, their approaches to studying user behavior.

Guiseppe Getto
Guiseppe Getto is a North Carolina college professor. He is also President and Co-Founder of Content Garden, Inc., a digital marketing and UX consulting firm.

Reading Sounds: Closed-Captioned Media and Popular Culture

Sean Zdenek. 2015. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [ISBN 978-0-226-31278-1. 338 pages, including index. US$40.00 (softcover).]

Zdenek_Reading_2015 Reading Sounds: Closed-Captioned Captioned Media and Popular Culture solidifies Zdenek’s position of more than 10 years’ experience researching and writing about captions. Brenda Brueggemann gives the best review possible on the book’s dust jacket: “There’s no book like this; plain and simple, it is one of the most original new books I’ve ever read.” This review addresses several factors that help make this book so powerful.

Reading Sounds is clearly written and enjoyable. Commanding attention from sentence one, Zdenek builds a compelling argument not just that captions are interesting but also that captioners engage in significant rhetorical work—work that impacts D/deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing viewers’ lived experiences. He shares more than his findings with the readers; Zdenek is transparent with his research tools and methodology. Consistent reference to his process and framework motivates with positive impact, urging readers to watch more captioned media critically. He does not focus just on “caption fails”—an easy target for new and experienced caption critics. Zdenek moves readers to watch for captioning excellence, to identify when and how captioners successfully provide full, rich access to meaning held in the soundtracks and non-speech information.

Zdenek maps out multiple research paths, topics, and potentials. This framing is potentially as important to caption studies as Blakeslee and Spilka’s (2004) “The State of Research in Technical Communication” and Blakeslee’s (2009) “The Technical Communication Research Landscape” are to technical communication research. Unlike Blakeslee and Spilka, Zdenek does not have a large community of technical communication scholars and researchers to draw from. Caption studies is currently comprised of a handful of practitioners—at least within the humanities-related portions of the field. Fortunately, as Zdenek makes clear throughout Reading Sounds, we can learn much by collaborating with captioning practitioners, researchers, and advocates.

Zdenek empowers caption research early on by presenting four basic principles and seven transformations of meaning that take place in captioning. This gifting of resources is just one example of why Reading Sounds is comparable to a Bag of Holding from Dungeons & Dragons for anyone moderately or passionately interested in captioning research. Like a Bag of Holding, this book contains far more than its 338 pages belie. Two other gems are:

a 21-page bibliography that is a goldmine for anyone interested in captioning-related work and research, and

a playful, fun, and critical analysis and discussion of diverse approaches to captioning Futurama’s Hypnotoad as well as their possible implications and meanings. This analysis also models how a close and detailed examination of popular culture can be engaging and informative.

The book’s companion site, ReadingSounds.net, has over 500 labeled, organized, and succinct captioning examples aligned with each chapter of the book. Even if Reading Sounds was not a book, this site would be worthy of close reading and review. Read the book, visit the site, and permanently change how you understand closed captioning.

Gregory Zobel
Gregory Zobel is an assistant professor of Educational Technology at Western Oregon University.

Assuring Quality in Online Education: Practices and Processes at the Teaching, Resource, and Program Levels

Kay Shattuck, ed. 2014. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. [ISBN 978-1-57922-871-2. 290 pages, including index. US$35. (softcover).]

Shattuck_Assuring_2014 Shattuck’s edited collection offers three perspectives on assuring quality on the teaching, resource, and program levels. The seventeen chapters, plus two chapters of closing thoughts, are authored by multiple authors and balanced equally over all three levels. This is a significant strength and weakness for the book.

Buyers for professional development programs, holistic program review, and academic libraries will find value in Assuring Quality in Online Education: Practices and Processes at the Teaching, Resource, and Program Levels. It collects perspectives that serve the multiple audiences and stakeholders who would participate in program review, online education training, and administration. For individual stakeholders, the book holds less value. As a working faculty and former graduate program administrator, I found the book frustrating. There was just enough material in multiple chapters of the teaching and program levels to make them interesting—but there was not enough to drive me to want the book as a whole.

Each level has multiple mediocre chapters that provide overviews or descriptions. However, solid pieces; like chapter 5 on Transparency and Quality Assurance (QA) by Morrison, Paulson, and Poulin as well as chapter 8 by Bogle, Day, Matthews, and Swan; focus on collaborative and collegial approaches to online teaching, which more than balanced these weaker fillers.

Several chapters were particularly interesting. Thompson and Kuhne provide a vital and valuable emphasis on ethics in their chapter “Ethics Matters.” Besides asking core questions like what and who matter, they spend several pages discussing the ethics around employing adjuncts.

Chapter 16, “An Adaptive Model for Calculating Contact Hours in Distance-Education Courses,” presents a model for calculating credit hours in online education, an issue of consistent interest to faculty and administrators. The authors provide a good background and an interesting model. However, after several readings, I could not shake a root problem: How did they come up with the amount of suggested time for each activity? Given the detailed emphasis on time and math to calculate the contact hours, I hoped to see more explanation and justification in the reasoning or at least suggestions in how to tease out some of the complexities. A forum question that requires a short answer versus a long response that synthesizes multiple reading sources require different amounts of time. A clearer description on this issue could have helped many online educators explain how the devil is in the details to their administrators and outside critics.

Overall, Shattuck’s book has some interesting ideas, literature reviews, and several vital concepts explored. But, at the end, you have to choose carefully what you read or you might feel like you want your time back. Fortunately, the book is clearly organized with each chapter containing multiple short sections, which may empower potential readers to review the content and assess for themselves whether they should invest in several chapters or the whole book.

Gregory Zobel
Gregory Zobel is an assistant professor of Educational Technology at Western Oregon University.

Smaller, Faster, Lighter, Denser, Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong

Robert Bryce. 2014. New York, NY: PublicAffairs. [ISBN-978-1-61039-205-1. 374 pages, including index. US$17.95.]

Bryce_Smaller_2014 Journalist, author, and public speaker Robert Bryce has published many articles on energy and oil use and five books such as Power Hungry, The Myths of “Green” Energy, and the Real Fuels of the Future, serving as a senior member of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Bryce’s latest book, Smaller, Faster, Lighter, Denser, Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong, provides a positive take on the future. He argues that solutions to today’s environmental challenges will come from technology. This technology will, in the future, reflect a human need to make things better, where better means faster, cheaper, lighter, denser and smaller. This includes lighter cars and faster computers.

Reporting from locations such as California, Oklahoma, Canada, and Panama, Bryce shows how companies are providing improved products and services using newer technologies that improve our lives. Not only do they improve our lives, they are earth-friendly.

What kinds of technologies are these? Bryce mentions the printing press and mobile phones, nanotech medicine and advanced drill rigs, vacuum tubes and mass-produced fertilizer.

Which companies are involved? Bryce cites newer groups, such as Khan Academy, and established names, such as Intel and Ford, which are both start-ups and well-known companies.

The positive message appears to be focused on how we will have a better, more sustainable future as we do what humans do—make things better by making them smaller, faster, lighter, denser, and, of course, cheaper.

If you feel like the future faces social, economic, and environmental challenges, you might enjoy reading about how innovation, technology, and human drive should continue to preserve the planet and the human race.

Is the book fun to read? If you don’t mind optimism about the future, a look at innovation and human progress, comments about a future with abundant energy, lighter cars, and faster computers, you could find the book fun to read. You will also read about how people’s lives continue to improve to be more comfortable, even addressing issues of overcoming poverty. Entrepreneurs will continue to improve technologies and provide innovation, solving current problems on our planet.

Jeanette Evans
Jeanette Evans is an STC Associate Fellow and active in the NEO community, currently serving on the newsletter committee. She holds an MS in technical communication management from Mercer University. Jeanette’s published article, “Emerging Technologies: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going,” appears in STC’s Intercom magazine.