Designing the Obvious


Book Description

Designing the Obvious belongs in the toolbox of every person charged with the design and development of Web-based software, from the CEO to the programming team. Designing the Obvious explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only whats necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity. Designing the Obvious does not offer a one-size-fits-all development process--in fact, it lets you use whatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently and successfully reproduce them. This latest edition updates examples to show the guiding principles of application design in action on today's web, plus adds new chapters on strategy and persuasion. It offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently and successfully reproduce them.




Designing the Obvious


Book Description

Designing the Obvious belongs in the toolbox of every person charged with the design and development of Web-based software, from the CEO to the programming team. Designing the Obvious explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only whats necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity. Designing the Obvious does not offer a one-size-fits-all development process--in fact, it lets you use whatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently and successfully reproduce them.




Designing the Moment


Book Description

The trick to great design is knowing how to think through each decision so that users don't have to. In Designing the Moment: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action, Robert Hoekman, Jr., author of Designing the Obvious, presents over 30 stories that illustrate how to put good design principles to work on real-world web application interfaces to make them obvious and compelling. From the first impression to the last, Hoekman takes a think out loud approach to interface design to show us how to look critically at design decisions to ensure that human beings, the kind that make mistakes and do things we don't expect, can walk away from our software feeling productive, respected, and smart.




Designing the Mobile User Experience


Book Description

Gain the knowledge and tools to deliver compelling mobile phone applications. Mobile and wireless application design is complex and challenging. Selecting an application technology and designing a mobile application require an understanding of the benefits, costs, context, and restrictions of the development company, end user, target device, and industry structure. Designing the Mobile User Experience provides the experienced product development professional with an understanding of the users, technologies, devices, design principles, techniques and industry players unique to the mobile and wireless space. Barbara Ballard describes the different components affecting the user experience and principles applicable to the mobile environment, enabling the reader to choose effective technologies, platforms, and devices, plan appropriate application features, apply pervasive design patterns, and choose and apply appropriate research techniques. Designing the Mobile User Experience: Provides a comprehensive guide to the mobile user experience, offering guidance to help make appropriate product development and design decisions. Gives product development professionals the tools necessary to understand development in the mobile environment. Clarifies the components affecting the user experience and principles uniquely applicable to the mobile application field. Explores industry structure and power dynamics, providing insight into how mobile technologies and platforms become available on current and future phones. Provides user interface design patterns, design resources, and user research methods for mobile user interface design. Illustrates concepts with example photographs, explanatory tables and charts, and an example application. Designing the Mobile User Experience is an invaluable resource for information architects, user experience planners and designers, interaction designers, human factors specialists, ergonomists, product marketing specialists, and brand managers. Managers and directors within organizations entering the mobile space, advanced students, partnership managers, software architects, solution architects, development managers, graphic designers, visual designers, and interface designers will also find this to be an excellent guide to the topic.




Don't Make Me Think


Book Description

Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don't be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design. Three New Chapters! Usability as common courtesy -- Why people really leave Web sites Web Accessibility, CSS, and you -- Making sites usable and accessible Help! My boss wants me to ______. -- Surviving executive design whims "I thought usability was the enemy of design until I read the first edition of this book. Don't Make Me Think! showed me how to put myself in the position of the person who uses my site. After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book. In this second edition, Steve Krug adds essential ammunition for those whose bosses, clients, stakeholders, and marketing managers insist on doing the wrong thing. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book." -- Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards




A Philosophy of Software Design


Book Description




Web Application Design Handbook


Book Description

The standards for usability and interaction design for Web sites and software are well known. This full-color book, written by designers with a significant contribution to Web-based application design, delivers both a thorough treatment of the subject for many different kinds of applications and a quick reference for designers looking for some fast design solutions.




Design for how People Learn


Book Description

Products, technologies, and workplaces change so quickly today that everyone is continually learning. Many of us are also teaching, even when it's not in our job descriptions. Whether it's giving a presentation, writing documentation, or creating a website or blog, we need and want to share our knowledge with other people. But if you've ever fallen asleep over a boring textbook, or fast-forwarded through a tedious e-learning exercise, you know that creating a great learning experience is harder than it seems. In Design For How People Learn, you'll discover how to use the key principles behind learning, memory, and attention to create materials that enable your audience to both gain and retain the knowledge and skills you're sharing. Using accessible visual metaphors and concrete methods and examples, Design For How People Learn will teach you how to leverage the fundamental concepts of instructional design both to improve your own learning and to engage your audience.




Designed for Use


Book Description

This book is for designers, developers, and product managers who are charged with what sometimes seems like an impossible task: making sure products work the way your users expect them to. You'll find out how to design applications and websites that people will not only use, but will absolutely love. The second edition brings the book up to date and expands it with three completely new chapters. Interaction design - the way the apps on our phones work, the way we enter a destination into our car's GPS - is becoming more and more important. Identify and fix bad software design by making usability the cornerstone of your design process. Lukas weaves together hands-on techniques and fundamental concepts. Each technique chapter explains a specific approach you can use to make your product more user friendly, such as storyboarding, usability tests, and paper prototyping. Idea chapters are concept-based: how to write usable text, how realistic your designs should look, when to use animations. This new edition is updated and expanded with new chapters covering requirements gathering, how the design of data structures influences the user interface, and how to do design work as a team. Through copious illustrations and supporting psychological research, expert developer and user interface designer Lukas Mathis gives you a deep dive into research, design, and implementation--the essential stages in designing usable interfaces for applications and websites. Lukas inspires you to look at design in a whole new way, explaining exactly what to look for - and what to avoid - in creating products that get people excited.




User Interface Design for Programmers


Book Description

Most programmers' fear of user interface (UI) programming comes from their fear of doing UI design. They think that UI design is like graphic design—the mysterious process by which creative, latte-drinking, all-black-wearing people produce cool-looking, artistic pieces. Most programmers see themselves as analytic, logical thinkers instead—strong at reasoning, weak on artistic judgment, and incapable of doing UI design. In this brilliantly readable book, author Joel Spolsky proposes simple, logical rules that can be applied without any artistic talent to improve any user interface, from traditional GUI applications to websites to consumer electronics. Spolsky's primary axiom, the importance of bringing the program model in line with the user model, is both rational and simple. In a fun and entertaining way, Spolky makes user interface design easy for programmers to grasp. After reading User Interface Design for Programmers, you'll know how to design interfaces with the user in mind. You'll learn the important principles that underlie all good UI design, and you'll learn how to perform usability testing that works.