Books for/about - User Interface Design

Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity

Publisher: New Riders Press
Authors: Jakob Nielsen

ISBN: 156205810X
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Summary: Very nice book
this is a very good book about web usability and its not a complex kind of book, you start reading it and u dont want to stop it untill you finish it!

Summary: Not quite what I expected..
As an avid read of Mr.Nielsen's blog and his website, I figured this book would comprise the "Bible of Web Design". Unfortunately, I was a bit let down.

His book does cover many aspects of web design and usability. In fact, he does a very good job at pointing out examples of bad web design. He uses full page pictures analyzing pages and their faults. Additionally, he lays out some ground rules for website design but many of them are redundnant and obvious to those who have designed sites in the past and read his blog/site.

Today though, this book is getting a tad out of date. It was written prior to the Web 2.0 boom and the usability gains included with AJAX and similar technologies.

This book does a good job at educating you that you ought not make websites like many people make their myspace pages (moving backgrounds, sounds onload, etc) but does not really provide any new information on how someone ought to approach new ideas in usability. For a beginner in web design and page layout, I would recommend this book. For someone who has been doing it for a long time I would pass this by.

Summary: Simple IS usually better
Please people don't design incredibly complex sites with over the top graphics that take an hour(feels like) to download even on broadband! I encounter this everyday and can't imagine what it must be like for those on dial-up, which is still most of the internet user base. Designers like to design and justify their high paying jobs by these crazy sites that simply drive me nuts. I recently tried looking for sunglasses on the Ray Ban site and Holy [...]! What a pain in the [...]! I finally went to a small reseller site where I could actually see the glasses quickly and make a purchase. The Ray Ban site I'm sure cost a fortune and is pretty but NOT user friendly. Web site designers need to remember that these sites are for people to find products and services, not to win design contests. My ex is a graphic designer(excuse me...User Interface Experience) for a very well know company and I know how they think. The more elaborate the better, we can charge clients more! KISS

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Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop: The Basics of ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo Updated for ArcGIS 9 (Getting to Know series)

Publisher: Esri Press
Authors: Robert Burke Eileen Napoleon Tim Ormsby

ISBN: 158948083X
List Price: $59.95
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Summary: Best introductory book to GIS
I am taking a class on GIS applications in public health and this book has been extremely helpful. It is simple, easy to follow, and the step-by-step exercises are the best.

Summary: Very good book for begineers
I was starting with Arc products and this book was a very good start.

Summary: Excellent Resource and teaching manual
I purchased this book to be able to create my own maps for a client. I was familiar with ArcGIS Desktop 8.3, but had never really created any GIS data. Using this book, I was able to create custom shape files, MXDs and layer files that really impressed the client. The author assumes little or no previous knowledge of using the product and does an outstanding job putting the information in the simplest of terms. Unlike the books that come with the software, this one will actually have you creating GIS data in no time flat. Well worth the money.

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	Prioritizing Web Usability Publisher: New Riders Press Authors: Jakob Nielsen Hoa Loranger
ISBN: 0321350316 List Price: $50.00 Amazon Price: $31.50 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: Good value for money It was in v. good condition and the book was useful for us in building some web standards through our organization Summary: Useful, but I struggled with the delivery of the material... This is one of those book reviews where I have to separate content from my biases on the presentation of that content... Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger. Let me elaborate... Contents: Introduction - Nothing To Hide; The Web User Experience; Revisiting Early Web Usability Findings; Prioritizing Your Usability Problems; Search; Navigation and Information Architecture; Typography - Readability & Legibility; Writing for the Web; Providing Good Product Information; Presenting Page Elements; Balancing Technology with People's Needs; Final Thoughts - Design That Works; Index I acknowledge that Nielsen is an industry expert in web usability. He has done extensive usability studies with web sites to capture what works and what doesn't when it comes to web design. His book Designing Web Usability is often cited as the bible of what should and shouldn't be done on your site. In Prioritizing, the authors take a look at the past to see if there's been any improvement on the killer sins of web design as covered in Designing. They update the ranking of the most heinous examples of "features", and then cover what items should be addressed first when it comes to fixing your site. There's no way to make a perfect site, and you can use this information to focus on getting the biggest payback on your efforts. Where I have a problem is with the "attitude" that I perceived in the material. Designing was one of the first web design books I read, and it really put me off of those types of books. The expert says "I don't like this", therefore no one should do that. If something loads in more than 1.52 seconds, it's bad. I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's the sense I got from reading the book. Prioritizing is a bit better, but I still had the feeling that Neilsen's preferences and nitpicking were being held up as "best practices", just because he says so. Yes, I know there is an abundance of research behind his numbers, but going on about how 17% do this and 19% do that got to be a bit much at times. And when I ran across a couple of pages that had a number of typos scattered throughout, I couldn't help but chuckle... Yes, this is good information to read and know. We all know that many sites leave much to be desired when it comes to actual usage. But I would have had an easier time being open to it if there was a bit more pragmatism and a bit less dogma... Could just be me, and your mileage might vary, however... Summary: useful advice on designing web pages The authors give very useful advice on designing web pages. Most of which comes across as common sense, once you read it. For example, if you have text in blue that is not clickable, it is not a good idea. Many users are now conditioned to regard blue text as a link, and might even consider your page broken if it does not click! The book also reports on the curious state of searching. Surveys indicate that the usage of a general purpose search engine, like Google, Yahoo or Microsoft, seems to give more relevant results, than a local search of a user's corporate website. Even though you'd imagine that the opposite should be true. Summary:

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About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design

Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Alan Cooper Robert M. Reimann

ISBN: 0764526413
List Price: $35.00
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Summary: Needs more examples!
I think this guy has a book about how the inmates are running the asylum...well this book suffers from what happens when the subject matter experts (SME) are allowed to write books. BORING!!! SME's always seem to forget to include compelling examples. Yes there are little screen shots, but IMO in order for a book to be compelling that has to do with design...it needs to show LOTS of examples of good design. The bulk of the book should be about breaking down those designs. I need to hear why a specific design is effective. Take a hint from Steve Krugs book "Don't Make me Think". That book is extremely effective without inundating the reader with jargon. Lots of examples with meaningful visual breakdowns. Afterall...isnt UI design a VISUAL communication form?

Summary: Not for experienced developers
I have 7 years experience and I wasn't able to get any value out of this book. Based on some of the reviews on this site I thought that the book would be worth buying but unless you are in school or right out of school then your $35 is better spent elsewhere.

I suggest that you put your $35 towards "The Usability Engineering Lifecycle" by Deborah J. Mayhew. Don't let the $64.95 price tag scare you away. This book is worth $100.

Summary: Good on concepts, weaker on examples
This follow up to About Face is a good overview of the critical concepts to improve software usability. Cooper and Reiman know their stuff. Reading this certainly provides you with the grounding you need to make good decisions. At a tactical level, the book could certainly do more to help with real-world examples.
For that, you may want to take a look instead at Jenifer Tidwell's Designing Interfaces : Patterns for Effective Interaction Design. Where About Face is strong on theory, Designing Interfaces is all about practical ideas, demonstrated through graphical examples.
If UI is an important part of your world, buy them both.

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Design of the UNIX Operating System (Prentice Hall Software Series)

Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Authors: Maurice J. Bach

ISBN: 0132017997
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Summary: magnificent discussion of internal architecture of UNIX
While there may be more detail to be found in "The Magic Garden," or more up-to-date coverage in the likes of Vahalia or Schimmel, Bach's opus is, in the view of this twenty-plus-year UNIX guru, unmatched. I say this because only while reading Bach's book do I experience the sense of philsophic structural perfection, of tool-orientation, of practicality-versus-theoretic-efficiency tradeoff, that characterizes the earliest UNIX monographs (Ritchie, Kernighan, Bourne, Lycklama, Ossana; that sort of thing) that busied me as a freshman. Bach imparts to the reader a glorious--and gloriously holistic--depiction of the structure of the UNIX kernel as a unit. Algorithmic details are provided where appropriate. Exceptionally well thought-out exercises stimulate the reader to extend the textual material where meet. The material is assuredly out of date, but I dare you to critize, say, Lions as being "out of date" (whether or not it describes a 25-year-old, 9K-LOC kernel, it is a scripture of paramount importance, a cornerstone of my computer engineering [n.b.: I didn't say "computer science"] library).

For those who are wont to compare Leffler and Bach--if for no other reason than that they are coevals--I heartily endorse Bach over its competitor. It's nice. It's clean. It's precise. You just couldn't ask for more. And, BTW, stay away from "The Magic Garden." I'm not sure that five hundred pages worth of out-of-context code excerpts, inundating the reader with thousands of kernel variables, accomplishes much by way of imparting conceptual understanding.

(I'm reminded: a customer of mine--an older gentleman with a Ph.D. in physics--once asked me for a concise description of the workings of UNIX, something that introduced the basic concepts at a scholarly but not overweight level. I told him I had a recommendation in mind. "You're going to give me 'The Magic Garden'," John complained; "Don't bother. It stinks!" Was John ever surprised when I pointed him to the third entry in Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems series. It has concise thirty or forty-page entries on UNIX, MS-DOS, and a handful of others. For those who want to know--from a scientist's viewpoint--what the fundamentals of the UNIX OS and superjacent environment are, what it can do, how one navigates within it, etc., at a _conceptual_ level that trucks not with the details of Bach or Leffler, seek ye Tanenbaum II.)

Summary: Awesome book on UNIX Internals
It is one of the greatest books that I have ever read on UNIX. It is a comprhensive yet simple depiction of Unix Operating System. This book is a MUST READ for UNIX / UNIX LIKE Operating System Engineers. It is worth possesing a copy as it can come handy quite regularly. I give it a full go go!

Summary: A model for how technical books should be written
Maurice Bach's The Design of the Unix Operating System still holds the place of honor on my technical reference bookshelf. After almost 20 years, it provides a clear overview of basic Unix organization and operations and is a model for how technical books should be written. Readers who complain that the text is dated evidently did not bother to notice the 1986 copyright date. Its age, however, has not diminished its clarity of content or usefulness in understanding the Unix operating system. Bach deserves an award for excellence in technical writing.

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	The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web Publisher: New Riders Press Authors: Jesse James Garrett
ISBN: 0735712026 List Price: $29.99 Amazon Price: $18.89 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 1 Reviews: Summary: User centered bloatware! Some nice ideas in a book with far too many pages. This story could be told in an article (OK, I'll admit a lenghty one), but it doesn't need a whole book to tell. And, although the ideas are nice, they are certainly not essential and they could be traded in for other equally good ideas on user-experience (imho) Summary: Better IA through better understanding of the Dev Process JJG has enlightened me about the 5 layers of User Experience Design: Strategy, Scope, Structure, Skeleton, and Surface. I have learned that the traditional Information Architecture of categorizing, labeling, and indexing data leaves much to be desired when trying to have a significant impact on the User-friendly outcome of a web application's Software Development Lifecycle. While we as IAs strive to design software interface that is intuitive; we must start with the fundamentals of good SDLC process before we can hope to deliver good User Experience. There is no magic formula; however, we CAN produce browser enabled software which is truly easy to use, if we place the proper emphasis on key elements like requirements gathering, wireframes, navigation, and interaction design. The surface layer is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to delivering a positive customer experience on the web. Summary: A Must-Read for Anyone Designing or Redesigning a Web Site I have bought over 20 copies of this book and given them away to colleagues. This is a practical guide to how to get it right. The process that Jesse outlines is not "rocket science" but he lays it out in a way that both designers and stakeholders can really understand it. It is also useful as a guide for a common vocabulary among vendors and clients. I keep a copy close at all times as I do Web strategy work. Summary:

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User Interface Design for Programmers

Publisher: Apress
Authors: Joel Spolsky

ISBN: 1893115941
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Summary: Amatuer at best
This book has a number of problems.

First, the writing is amateurish - hardly what I'd expect from someone trying to impart knowledge on a professional audience. It reads as a high school book report, not a reference for software engineers. I expect elegance in material I read, if for nothing else but to gain confidence in the author's intelligence and experience.

Second, much of the information is clearly lifted from books such as 'Tog on Interface' (which I highly recommend). Take for example chapter 10 from User Interface Design for Programmers - 'People Can't Control the Mouse'. Spolsky's ideas on the problem of small mouse targets, as well as his solutions, are almost a direct copy of Bruce Tognazzini's (which I might add were presented much earlier). As another reviewer mentioned, not only are the ideas un-original, but they are presented haphazardly and with little supporting information.

Overall, this book is not worth a penny. It is simply the ineloquent regurgitation of other's ideas.

Summary: The Title is Honest
One of the first question I always notice about books: Is the title honest? For this book I can unabashedly say, Yes. This book is for programmers.

I've been a full time developer for just over 5 years. Making technology work is my game, but when it comes to designing UIs, it's more like random dart throwing and voodoo. But, considering some of the stuff I've seen other people put out. . . my stuff is not too bad! Still, I like doing a professional job and users expect programmers like us to know UI design-in spite of the fact most of us can't even draw decent stick figures!

The best thing about this book is Joel speaks my language. He makes art comprehensible to the techny. Not an easy accomplishment, but Joel is no ordinary guy either. He runs his own ISV in New York City and hosts one of the most popular software development blog sites around. (joelonsoftware.com) To survive financially in a place like NYC says something of his abilities. This book like his other writings bear that out: great concepts, great illustrations and well packaged thought.

One note, this book is about principles of design. It is not a quick how-to book. If you need some templates for a GUI project you are starting tomorrow, or need to know the ins/outs of a particular OS graphical system, this book isn't for you. But, if like me you've struggled with every new UI and are searching for guiding principles, this book is great!

Summary: Brilliant
This book is simply one of the best I have ever read. Joel's style is so funny, simple and expressive, and I enjoyed in every moment reading it. I read once that if someone realy understands the subject, then he must be able to explain it in simple way that almost everyone could understand. So, I think Joel truly knows what he's talking about, and not only in this book.

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Operating Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition) (Prentice Hall Software Series)

Publisher: Prentice Hall
Authors: Andrew S Tanenbaum Albert S Woodhull

ISBN: 0131429388
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Summary: A great introduction to operating systems
This book is written by Tanenbaum, the main guy behind Minix, which is what Linux was based on. It provides good overviews for basic OS concepts like memory management, file systems, processes, etc. The concepts in this book book are intimately tied to examples of the Minix OS, which is a good thing.

To those who would rather see examples from Linux: Minix is a compact and modular OS, which is why it's a good choice for examples. The book contains the entire source code at the back for easy reference. Yes, the OS is that small. That's a good thing when you're trying to figure out how virtual memory works or what have you. You'd be lost trying to learn this stuff from Linux. Above everything else, the code is ***well-commented*** compared to Linux, a major plus. You won't find any "/* major hack */" comments, either. ;) Minix leaves out all the crap that Microsoft and Linux throw into the kernel that make it unstable in the first place. Learn about the bells and whistles later when you can do the basics.

I encountered two instances where the book wasn't updated to reflect changes in the OS, which were annoying to deal with. Also, I found a spelling or punctuation error about every ten pages, which was annoying for such a pricey book. Overall, however, the book is extremely usable and understandable. It's easy to pick up concepts from this text.

Summary: Not the best basis for Operating System design
While this book is good explaining theory and demonstrating it in the author's operating system, MINIX, MINIX is an insanely small OS. Now there's nothing wrong with that by default, just keep in mind that any OS you were to write in industry, etc would be way more complex.

Also, beware, of the 1000+ pages, at least a quarter of that is a print out, line by line, of the MINIX 3 source code. (Approximately 30,000 lines...)

Bottom line: Good for basic theory and understanding, but you would need to know much more to write a friendly OS.

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