At last, a good intermediate-level interface book

books:


	• Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design Jenifer Tidwell O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2005 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 47 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Finally, a practical design book

I love this book! It takes common design problems and gives patterns that you can use to solve those problems. And the solutions are illustrated in brilliant color using real world web sites and hardware devices. This is the practical design book that I have been looking for.

At last, a good intermediate-level interface book

Let's start with the worst thing about the book - the title. The book is really a book of UI design patterns. You won't learn how to design an interface from reading this book. What you will get is a large collection of useful patterns and principles for applying them. Given my choice, I would have called the book "Interface Design Patterns and Principles."

The best thing about this book is that it hits its target spot-on: the intermediate-level designer. I have shelves full of beginner/introductory books and quite a few specialist books for advanced designers. However, before I got this book I had nothing at all that was good for the middle of that range. Tidwell doesn't waste pages trying to bring a beginner up to the point where she could understand and use these patterns, nor does she try to get into the kinds of esoteric details that would make someone a master. I found reading the book pleasant and informative.

One important metric for me of any O'Reilly book is its reference value. I don't expect them to produce step-by-step texts; rather, I use their books for answering questions, getting guidance, and giving insights. I feel this book does a fabulous job as a useful reference. I've already had several chances to refer back to it and I expect it to keep a prominent place on my reference shelf.

The patterns that Tidwell develops in the book are useful and I'm particularly glad she has included a large number of examples. I might wish for more negative or counter-examples, since it's sometimes easier to learn from mistakes, but I recognize that pointing out design errors can be a tricky business. Likewise, the organization of the patterns into groups is something that just about anyone could quibble about but we'd all agree that some sort of organization is necessary to make this a good reference and not just a laundry list, and the book does that well.

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Earns a spot on my bookshelf at work...

OK... this one earns a spot on my bookshelf at work... Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell.

Contents: What Users Do; Organizing The Content; Getting Around; Organizing The Page; Doing Things; Showing Complex Data; Getting Input From Users; Builders and Editors; Making It Look Good; References; Index

This is one of those books that you'll read once and then start making post-it note bookmarks in certain areas. Tidwell starts each chapter with an explanation of that particular area of interface design. For instance, in Organizing The Content, she talks about how layout of content makes a difference in how users find and perceive the data. In addition, you have a number of constraints to work under, depending on the target of your application (full-screen monitor vs. cell phone browser). Then things get really good. She presents a number of "patterns", or practical examples of how you can implement a design technique. Sticking with the Organizing chapter, you have the following patterns: Two-Panel Selector, Canvas Plus Palette, One-Window Drilldown, Alternative Views, Wizard, Extras on Demand, Intriguing Branches, and Multi-Level Help. Each pattern has a visual showing what it looks like, a "what" explanation, a "use when" description of when it should be considered, "why" it works as a technique, "how" it should be implemented, and some "examples" of how it's used in real software and websites. What you end up with is a rich volume of design techniques that can make the difference between a "wow" application and shelfware...

Like many good designs, you will probably look at some of these and not even realize that there was a pattern at play. Some designs have become de-facto standards for particular situations, and we don't even think about them any more. But when you deconstruct a site and see what's really going on, you can start to become more savvy in your choice of layout and interaction with the user. And for those of us who are more comfortable with back-end coding than front-end user interfaces, we'll take all the help we can get!

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. I really like this book...

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Great catalog of user interface elements

A thorough and well-written catalog of common user interface elements, illustrated with screenshots from popular applications. Each item is explained in detail, though a better discussion of usability problems would have been welcome. But perhaps that's a book of it's own...

A Different Approach to Interface Design Books

Designing Interfaces is not like most books about interface design. It presents "patterns" that the author has seen in Interaction Design and in developing user interfaces. The ninety-four patterns are divided into categories with each category/chapter having a brief introduction and overview. The pattern categories are:

What Users Do
Organizing the Content
Getting Around
Organizing the Page
Doing Things
Showing Complex Data
Getting Input from Users
Builders and Editors
Making It Look Good

The twelve patterns in the What Users Do section are different from the other patterns in the book in content and length. With names such as "Safe Exploration", Satisficing", and "Spatial Memory" the patterns deal with how people work with and react to interfaces and the information they present. These patterns range from a few paragraphs to a page in length.

The rest of the patterns are somewhat more akin to those found in the Gang of Four's Design Patterns book. Each pattern has what, use when, why, how, and examples sections. The how section presents a scenario or design choices for how the pattern can be used. There are multiple figures illustrating the pattern and references to related patterns.

The book's good points are the brief but good content of the chapter overviews, the how sections of each pattern, and the illustrations. The numerous figures highlight key points of the section or pattern with which they are associated. I particularly liked the "trunk test" illustrations in the Organizing the Page section and the figures throughout the Making It Look Good section.

My complaints about the book are minor. When one pattern referenced another I would have liked the page number of the referenced pattern to be listed instead of just the name. I found the grey color of the text a bit tough on the eyes and the font size for the figure descriptions a bit small.

I found this to be a very good and interesting book. One of the major benefits of the Design Patterns book was that it provided a common vocabulary with which to discuss and communicate software designs. It will be interesting to see if this book has the same effect on interaction and interface design.

Full disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the book for review.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10

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