SENG 2004-02-12

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Books & magazines


If you like to read and do not know the following - our recommendations:


Magazines:

Electronics magazines including useful articles, design tips and a good product preview:

EDN - The design magazine of the electronics industry. Reed Electronics Group.
http://www.edn.com

Elektronik - Fachzeitschrift für industrielle Anwender und Entwickler. WEKA Fachzeitschriften-Verlag GmbH.
http://www.elektronik.de

FUNKAMATEUR - Das Magazin für Funk-Elektronik-Computer. Box 73 Amateurfunkservice GmbH.
http://www.funkamateur.de


Books:

If you want to design a simple switch, a clock or even something more complicated that should be be served and handled by humans, we recommend this reading:

Norman, Donald. A. (2002). The design of everyday things. New York: Basic Books.
(The re-issue, with a new preface, of The psychology of everyday things.)

It will help to design the thing in such a way that the switch or the clock can be used without operating instructions and without the acquisition of a hammer or a toolbox. If you carry on a shop with operating instructions, workshop manuals, inferior electronics and toolboxes - forget this book, it´s done by the devil and will reduce your profit.


If you possess something, that does not completely correspond to the rules of the previous book, or you were forced by your chief, against your conviction, to design something that brings cash to your company but attacks the nerves of your customers, then we recommend the following book:

Adams, Scott (1997). The Dilbert Principle. New York: HarperBusiness.
(A cubicle´s eye view of bosses, meetings, management fads & other workplace afflictions.)

It will help you to recognize that you are not alone. That makes things not less worse, but easier to live with.


If you belong to those humans having the right to vote in Germany (or somewhere else), you might read this book, above all it´s appendix, before the next elections:

Engelmann, Bernt (1987). Grosses Bundesverdienstkreuz (mit Stern). Göttingen: Steidl Verlag
(Documentary novel.)

If you feel ill, betrayed, deceived and exploited afterwards - reading Dilbert again may help - or you think about your vote again...