User Interface Book Reviews
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About Face 2.0 by Alan Cooper (Order from Amazon.com) If you are a software engineer or product manager, you simply must read this 504-page paperback! As promised in the subtitle, Cooper lays out "the essentials of user interface design" in a folksy voice, and supports his conclusions with compelling examples and authoritative explanations of why his practical proposals are superior to the accepted status quo. If you've ever been frustrated at a "stupid" program, this is the book you should throw at the programmer. See also The Inmates Are Running The Asylum. |
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Designing Websites For Every Audience by Ilise Benum (Order from Amazon.com) This 144-page paperback is tremendously useful for web designers looking for both inspiration and instruction. The before-and-after redesigns of 25 different real-world web sites are examined in depth, with the design goals, user profiles, thoughtful observations, and unexpected discoveries enhanced through the use of full color screen shots. The chapters are organized by six different audience profiles, so no matter what type of site you're developing--commercial, community, educational, entertainment--you're bound to find tons of applicable ideas and expert knowledge upon which to draw. |
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Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug (Order from Amazon.com) Subtitled "a common sense approach to web usability," this 195-page paperback is a good book for busy executives to digest, but user interaction designers will find it merely a good refresher course since it lacks the details of Alan Cooper's excellent About Face. The layout features lots of screen shots, illustrations, big text, and white space, making it a quick read, though Krug's inclusion of too many off-topic footnotes is distracting. Still, there's enough good advice contained within to justify the cover price. |
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The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin (Order from Amazon.com) If you're interested in understanding why today's computers remain difficult to use, and what might be done to rectify this dilemma, read this 233-page paperback. Perhaps best-known as the "Father of the Macintosh Project" at Apple, Raskin explains why certain approaches to interface design (both in software and physical objects, not just computer equipment) function and others frustrate. Raskin spends a lot of pages extolling the virtues of the Canon Cat, a revolutionary 1987 computer that failed in the marketplace, and as such comes across as beating a dead horse at times. Many of Raskin's proposals are impossible to implement on today's Wintel and Mac systems and will therefore seem of little practical importance, but if more programmers kept the spirit of this book in mind while designing future products, computing would definitely be easier, more productive, and far less frustrating. |
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The Inmates Are Running The Asylum by Alan Cooper (Order from Amazon.com) Rather than focus on the nuts and bolts that make up good user interface design as he did in his landmark book About Face, Cooper's latest tome examines the systemic problems of the high technology industry, from its reverential treatment of engineers to the unflinching belief in technology as a solution in and of itself. Using real-world examples, Cooper shows how his goal-oriented design process results in products that serve actual user needs, rather than satisfy the egos of engineers or desires of competing corporate departments. In its 261 hardcover pages, Inmates makes a compelling business case for the value of user interaction design. |
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Web Design Workshop by John Tollett, Robin Williams, and David Rohr (Order from Amazon.com) This 372-page paperback is more accurately an idea book than a workshop guide. Its pages are filled with full-color illustrations of web sites that demonstrate various design points the authors are trying to make in the well-written and opinionated text, but there's precious little step-by-step guidance on how to accomplish the effects shown. If you're new to web design, this pricey book provides a nice overview of what's possible, and it offers a lot of good design basics, but ultimately it'll have you reaching for the documentation of your graphics and web creation packages. |
