Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design by
Jenifer Tidwell.
I have taken a more than a couple programming language classes during
my IT career,
and not until discovering this book did I realize that something was
missing from
them: Interface Design. It usually got about two sentences per
semester, and it
was usually something like "make sure your prompts and input controls
line up".
This book is a remedy for those who want to develop professional
looking applications,
but need help organizing the information and user controls on a screen.
The format
reminds me of a college textbook: many color illustrations, diagrams,
and bullet points.
It uses examples (screenshots) of how well known applications organize
and present data
for the user. These include dialog boxes for desktop applications, menu
items for hand
held devices, and web applications using real life examples. The
examples shown are from
familiar applications and web sites to include but not limited include
Excel, Photoshop,
blogs, and many many more.
The first chapter deals with getting to know what your users expect (a
bit of analysis).
Chapter 2 discusses dividing up the information to be presented. After
that the book is
divided into Navigation, Page Layout, User Actions and Commands,
Showing Complex Data,
Form Design, as well as Builders and Editors (Word, Paintshop etc...).
The last chapter
covers style and aesthetics: typography, color, imgages, and even the
use of angles and
curves.
The real strength of this book is that the design solutions are
organized by What to use,
When to Use It, Why you would use it, and How to use it. These ideas
are reinforced with
screen shots of well known commercial applications
I have to give this book 5 of 5 stars for these reasons.
1. Clarity - the author follows her own advice in format, organization
and content.
If you don't know what a Closeable panel is, look on page 111,
there's a picture.
2. The what's, why's, when's, and how's of each type of design idiom
for user interfaces.
It's to the point.
3. Tons of real world examples in graphic representation.
4. Covers a broad scope, but provides ample details for each subject.
5. Interfaces such as maps, graphs, charts, user input, and page
navigation are included.
There's something for everyone.
6. Applies to both desktop and web applications. (I see plenty of web
design books,
but little or nothing on the subject of interfaces in general).
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