Effective UI

Preface

When the Internet first came online in 1969, it linked computer systems the size of two-car garages that had only a tiny fraction of the power of a modern smartphone. They were programmed and maintained by researchers and scientists, and performed functions that would be ludicrously rudimentary by today’s standards. The complexity and size of these systems ensured that computers and software were pretty remote from the everyday lives and experiences of people. But as the power and sophistication of computing systems and software have grown, their proximity to our lives has increased to the point where software is integral to the daily home and work life experiences of most people.

The sophistication of software has grown tremendously while at the same time software is reaching a much less technical audience. This creates a nexus of tension around the user interface (UI); for sophisticated products to be fully useful, they must be easy to operate. At its heart, software is like any other tool; its purpose is to make people’s lives and work easier, and to give people access to capabilities previously beyond their reach. This demands, of course, that the software itself not be beyond their reach.

It’s taken a while for the standards of UI design and user experience (UX) quality to catch up with the advances in software capabilities and ubiquity. But the time for better UX has, at long last, finally come. When we began writing this book in early 2009, there was a noticeable increase ...