Designing Interfaces

ABOUT THE PATTERNS IN THIS BOOK

So there's nothing really new in here. If you've done any web or UI design, or even thought much about it, you should say, "Oh, right, I know what that is" to most of these patterns. But a few of them might be new to you, and some of the familiar ones may not be part of your usual design repertoire.

These patterns work for both desktop and web-based applications. Many patterns also apply to such digital devices as palmtops, cell phones, and TV-based devices like digital recorders. Ordinary web sites might also benefit, but I'll talk more about that topic in the next section.

Though this book won't exhaustively describe all the interface idioms mentioned earlier, they organize part of the book. Three chapters focus on the more common idioms: forms, information graphics, and WYSIWYG editors (like those used for text and graphics). Other chapters address subjects that are useful across many idioms, such as organization, navigation, actions, and visual style.

This book is intended to be read by people who have some knowledge of such interface design concepts and terminology such as dialog boxes, selection, combo boxes, navigation bars, and white space. It does not identify many widely accepted techniques, such as copy-and-paste, since you already know what they are. But, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, this book describes some common techniques to encourage their use in other contexts—for instance, many desktop applications could better use Global ...