book

GUI Bloopers 2.0, 2nd Edition

by Jeff Johnson

October 2007

Beginner to intermediate

424 pages

12h 7m

English

Morgan Kaufmann

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Why was this book updated?Why is this book needed?What is a GUI blooper?How were the bloopers compiled?How is the book organized?Who should read GUI Bloopers 2.0 and how should they use it?GUI-Bloopers2.com
IntroductionBasic Principle 1: Focus on the users and their tasks, not on the technologyBasic Principle 2: Consider function first, presentation laterBasic Principle 3: Conform to the users’ view of the taskBasic Principle 4: Design for the common caseBasic Principle 5: Don’t distract users from their goalsBasic Principle 6: Facilitate learningBasic Principle 7: Deliver information, not just dataBasic Principle 8: Design for responsivenessBasic Principle 9: Try it out on users, then fix it!
IntroductionUsing the wrong controlUsing controls wrongly
IntroductionNot showing users where they areLeading users astray and not showing the wayPoor search navigation
IntroductionUncommunicative textDeveloper-centric textMisleading text

IntroductionBad layout and window placementTroublesome typography
IntroductionDeviating from task focusRequiring unnecessary stepsBurdening users’ memoryTaking control away from users
IntroductionCommon responsiveness bloopersReasons for poor responsivenessAvoiding responsiveness bloopers: Design principlesAvoiding responsiveness bloopers: TechniquesConclusion
IntroductionCounterproductive attitudeCounterproductive process
Appendix A: GlossaryAppendix B: How this book was usability testedAppendix C: Task analysis of creating slide presentations—questionsAppendix D: Illustrating simplicity—the object/action matrixAppendix E: Usability tests for every time and purpose
Blooper 71: Text hard to read on backgroundBlooper 72: Relying on subtle color differences

Content preview from GUI Bloopers 2.0, 2nd Edition

Introduction

Why was this book updated?

The first edition of this book was written in 1998 and 1999. The common application platforms then were MacOS9, Windows98, Windows NT, early versions of Java Swing, and Unix or Linux with CDE/Motif. Although many of the bloopers covered in the first edition are as common now as they were in the late 1990s, the book was starting to look out of date because the blooper examples were all from the last century. To look current, the book needed new examples.

A second reason for a new edition was that some bloopers that were common in 1999 have become less common, and new common bloopers have taken their place. A higher proportion of new applications these days are Web based, so it became important to ...