By Jenifer Tidwell
First Edition
November 2005
Pages: 352
ISBN 10: 0-596-00803-1 |
ISBN 13: 9780596008031
(Average of 3 Customer Reviews)
This convenient resource offers advice on creating user-friendly interface designs--whether they're delivered on the Web, a CD, or a "smart" devices like a cell phone. Solutions to common UI design problems are expressed as a collection of patterns--each one containing concrete examples, recommendations, and warnings. Intended for designers with basic UI design knowledge.
Full Description
UI designers over the years have refined the art of interface design, evolving many best practices and reusable ideas. If you learn these, and understand why the best user interfaces work so well, you too can design engaging and usable interfaces with less guesswork and more confidence.
Designing Interfaces captures those best practices as design patterns -- solutions to common design problems, tailored to the situation at hand. Each pattern contains practical advice that you can put to use immediately, plus a variety of examples illustrated in full color. You'll get recommendations, design alternatives, and warnings on when not to use them.
Each chapter's introduction describes key design concepts that are often misunderstood, such as affordances, visual hierarchy, navigational distance, and the use of color. These give you a deeper understanding of why the patterns work, and how to apply them with more insight.
A book can't design an interface for you -- no foolproof design process is given here -- but Designing Interfaces does give you concrete ideas that you can mix and recombine as you see fit. Experienced designers can use it as a sourcebook of ideas. Novice designers will find a roadmap to the world of interface and interaction design, with enough guidance to start using these patterns immediately.
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
Web designers should read this too, December 31 2007
From the title, you might think this is geared at software GUI designers and to a certain extent, it is (it's about a 50/50 split between desktop and Web examples). However, this is a false dichotomy because in a nutshell, what is Web design? It's a (branded) software interface for Web content.
This book will teach you interface design patterns that are very relevant for the Web and as the Web becomes an application platform in of itself, it's even more imperative to have a grasp of these idioms beyond "Home" and "About Us"
Just Excellent, January 13 2006
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).
excellent pattern catalog, January 04 2006
“Designing Interfaces”does for UIs what the Gang of Four did for code. Each chapter starts with a detailed overview of a UI topic with examples of good and bad design. The bulk of the chapter goes into many idioms/patterns that apply to that part of UI design. For example, form design, data presentation and editors are covered in chapter form. There is even a chapter on the emotional effect of pages. The emphasis on user interaction and not just design, distinguishes this book from others.
While there are many books on website design, this one also covers desktop and mobile interfaces. Many principles are the same and differences are highlighted. The author culls some ideas from the website design and usability classics; always making a reference. Other ideas are standards and yet more are original.
The main point of the book is to create a catalog and common language for discussing interface design. At this, the author succeeds fabulously. Each idiom or pattern is given a distinctive name, described with the what/when/why/how and provides examples. Just like Gang of Four, the patterns are appropriately cross referenced. This book is both a great read and a great reference. If you design or make GUI recommendations, you should buy it today!
Media reviews
"This is technical communication at its best: a great concept brilliantly executed. "
-- Major Keary, Book News
"Tidwell is right on the money when it comes to offering a broad range of options to address just about any interface design need you may run into. Her experience working with Matlab's Mathworks didn't limit her to offering advice for client software interface design. Tidwell goes well beyond it, delving into web design and mobile interface waters, which she swims with equal comfort and efficiency...All in all, this becomes a must reference for anyone needing to learn or polish skills in software interface design for any medium."
-- Manny Hernandez, Ask Manny: A Bilingual Blog
"This is one of those books that you'll read once and then start making post-it note bookmarks in certain areas...What you end up with is a rich volume of design techniques that can make the difference between a "wow" application and shelfware. This book will carve out a space within arm's reach on my work bookshelf. Periodic review of the contents will go far in making me a better designer in my development activities."
-- Thomas Duff, Duffbert's Random Musings
