This review was written in 2001, so it is quite dated...posted here (from my old Amazon site) for your amusement. The book, however, is still quite relavent in it's approach to critical theory and design....

It is a given that people take design for granted. So it is not surprising that many people have adapted to the rich multimedia interfaces they encounter each day. What is surprising however, is that the design community is only now just reacting to this shift and is struggling to cannonize "E-Design". It would seem that the design world is no different from any other sitting monarch reluctant to budge. If you are diving into 'E-Design', then you no doubt have noticed that the traditional design community fears you. This book was written with you in mind. It is the manifesto to the revolution. This collection of wonderful essays comes straight from the cutting edge thinkers in desgin today--some of them professors, who delight in throwing out references to critical theorists such as Foucault and Derrida. This book is long overdue and I am delighted to have found it as it helps to define the importance of E-Design in the future of design. Natalie Zee's writes, "Digital designers are at the forefront of the industry, those that are helping to define the dicipline, and those that are creating all the innovative interactive experiences...They are Design Technologists."
For all those traditional designers who don't take E-Design seriously, please read this book. As Charles Traub puts it in his essay, "The advent of the computer did not create the technical tangle of multimedia, but rather manifests a pre-existing need in our culture for a more democratic, universal, and diverse way to communicate." ( )