4 ms·

> reading some good books Suggestions for books?

tempguy9999 8y ago
See if you can find online the Star UI paper - 'designing the star user interface', April 1982 in Byte magazine. If you can't I have a PDF. It was perhaps the most influential thing I've ever read on UIs. This may be it https://tech-insider.org/star/research/acrobat/8204.pdf https://tech-insider.org/star/research/acrobat/8204.pdf but my browser's playing up so can't download. I'll give at least one more recommendation tomorrow, it's late here.
tclancy 8y ago
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.
- rangerpolitic 8y ago
  The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.
tempguy9999 8y ago
The suggested link to the Star UI paper I gave seems to be correct. Highly recommended. The other is "Tog On Interface". He's the guy (or one of them) behind the original Mac UI and you can see how he built it up. You really need to have used the original mac to relate the book to it, but you can get by without (I recently used a mac and was amazed/horrified to see it'd now hide a window's scrollbars unless you'd hovered the mouse over them. That's precisely Cool taking over from Useful). Both are old but timeless because human psychology doesn't change. Both are about computer UIs. IIRC Norman's The Design of Everyday Things isn't, so less useful in that area, but it's good and pushes you to the right mindset. From my experience (and I'm not a UI designer, and this list should be longer, and I'm talking more about the naive user; not hardcore techies, but much still applies): x. The user matters. However much they might piss you off, you're designing for them, not for yourself. Accept this. This is critical point #1. x. Any UI change that seems sensible and obvious to you is likely not to be to them (see point below). You have to be prepared to iterate repeatedly. It's expensive. Critical point #2 x. The user has an infinite capacity to misunderstand/misinterpret anything (example from Tog book: he puts a tester in front of a monochrome monitor and asks them if they see colour. They say yes. Q: Why? A: because it was a monochrome, but green phosphor CRT. They actually weren't being thick) x. UIs are not about tickboxes/buttons/menus/whatever, that's like talking about the syntax of programming languages. What matters is the user's workflow, which is more like the semantics of a language, metaphorically. Don't get hung up on visuals. x. They won't RTFM (sigh). They just won't. Also, UI documentation that just lists stuff is near useless; the user wants to do their job, not be awed about features. Show them how your changes help them do their job. x. The user acts stupid, but isn't. They just want to do their job (ok, some are but mostly not). x. As users get familiar with your interface they become less useful as testers, at least in the area being tested. Nothing profound in this list, but it's almost impossible not to make these mistakes.

See if you can find online the Star UI paper - 'designing the star user interface', April 1982 in Byte magazine. If you can't I have a PDF. It was perhaps the most influential thing I've ever read on UIs. This may be it https://tech-insider.org/star/research/acrobat/8204.pdf https://tech-insider.org/star/research/acrobat/8204.pdf but my browser's playing up so can't download. I'll give at least one more recommendation tomorrow, it's late here.

tclancy 8y ago

Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.

rangerpolitic 8y ago
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.

tempguy9999 8y ago

The suggested link to the Star UI paper I gave seems to be correct. Highly recommended. The other is "Tog On Interface". He's the guy (or one of them) behind the original Mac UI and you can see how he built it up. You really need to have used the original mac to relate the book to it, but you can get by without (I recently used a mac and was amazed/horrified to see it'd now hide a window's scrollbars unless you'd hovered the mouse over them. That's precisely Cool taking over from Useful). Both are old but timeless because human psychology doesn't change. Both are about computer UIs. IIRC Norman's The Design of Everyday Things isn't, so less useful in that area, but it's good and pushes you to the right mindset. From my experience (and I'm not a UI designer, and this list should be longer, and I'm talking more about the naive user; not hardcore techies, but much still applies): x. The user matters. However much they might piss you off, you're designing for them, not for yourself. Accept this. This is critical point #1. x. Any UI change that seems sensible and obvious to you is likely not to be to them (see point below). You have to be prepared to iterate repeatedly. It's expensive. Critical point #2 x. The user has an infinite capacity to misunderstand/misinterpret anything (example from Tog book: he puts a tester in front of a monochrome monitor and asks them if they see colour. They say yes. Q: Why? A: because it was a monochrome, but green phosphor CRT. They actually weren't being thick) x. UIs are not about tickboxes/buttons/menus/whatever, that's like talking about the syntax of programming languages. What matters is the user's workflow, which is more like the semantics of a language, metaphorically. Don't get hung up on visuals. x. They won't RTFM (sigh). They just won't. Also, UI documentation that just lists stuff is near useless; the user wants to do their job, not be awed about features. Show them how your changes help them do their job. x. The user acts stupid, but isn't. They just want to do their job (ok, some are but mostly not). x. As users get familiar with your interface they become less useful as testers, at least in the area being tested. Nothing profound in this list, but it's almost impossible not to make these mistakes.