- Animation
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- Expression Blend
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- VB.NET
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BlueForest Networks
User Interface Design for Programmers
Publisher: Apress - June 26, 2001 ISBN-10: 1893115941, ISBN-13: 9781893115941
Author: Joel Spolsky
159 pages
User Interface Design for Programmers - book reviews: 41
Most programmers' fear of user interface (UI) programming comes from their fear of doing UI design. They think that UI design is like graphic design&emdash;the mysterious process by which creative, latte-drinking, all-black-wearing people produce cool-looking, artistic pieces. Most programmers see themselves as analytic, logical thinkers instead&emdash;strong at reasoning, weak on artistic judgment, and incapable of doing UI design.
In this brilliantly readable book, author Joel Spolsky proposes simple, logical rules that can be applied without any artistic talent to improve any user interface, from traditional GUI applications to websites to consumer electronics. Spolky's primary axiom, the importance of bringing the program model in line with the user model, is both rational and simple.
In a fun and entertaining way, Spolky makes UI design easy for programmers to grasp. After reading User Interface Design for Programmers, you'll know how to design interfaces with the user in mind. You'll learn the important principles that underlie all good UI design, and you'll learn how to perform usability testing that works.
Some good ideas, some nonsense
This book is aimed at programmers who don't have the time or inclination to do research on user interface design, and it has some good suggestions, but you shouldn't take anything he says on faith because he is flat out wrong a good 25% of the time. Spolsky is very intelligent and the book can be fun to read at times, but he also comes off as really really arrogant and narrow minded. He is particularly and undeservedly venomous towards the Linux / OSS community, and this is really inexcusable.
Here is the executive summary: users can't read dialog boxes, they can't use the mouse, the don't read instructions, they have an idea of how the program is supposed to work, and most of the time they can't be bothered to learn how the program "does things differently," so be consistent and imitate programs your users are already likely to be familiar with.
You can lump all of this under the general heading "reduce user effort" which is a pretty good design philosophy. It really only breaks down when your users include other software developers. Developer software has its own set of user interface rules that are completely different (use man pages, don't produce output if everything is OK unless you are testing or the program is doing version control) but Spolsky doesn't appear to understand or appreciate this, so you'll just have to learn it on your own (you can start by googling unix philosophy).
This book gets 4 stars because the average computer book is AWFUL, so this book easily gets into the 80th percentile.
DavidInBerkeley
21 May, 2008
Great read, helpful info
I rarely give out 5 stars, but this book deserves it.
Well written, on the light side, but serious about providing best practices for UI design with good examples to back it up.
Charles M. Slate
14 May, 2007
The Title is Honest
One of the first question I always notice about books: Is the title honest? For this book I can unabashedly say, Yes. This book is for programmers.
I've been a full time developer for just over 5 years. Making technology work is my game, but when it comes to designing UIs, it's more like random dart throwing and voodoo. But, considering some of the stuff I've seen other people put out. . . my stuff is not too bad! Still, I like doing a professional job and users expect programmers like us to know UI design-in spite of the fact most of us can't even draw decent stick figures!
The best thing about this book is Joel speaks my language. He makes art comprehensible to the techny. Not an easy accomplishment, but Joel is no ordinary guy either. He runs his own ISV in New York City and hosts one of the most popular software development blog sites around. (joelonsoftware.com) To survive financially in a place like NYC says something of his abilities. This book like his other writings bear that out: great concepts, great illustrations and well packaged thought.
One note, this book is about principles of design. It is not a quick how-to book. If you need some templates for a GUI project you are starting tomorrow, or need to know the ins/outs of a particular OS graphical system, this book isn't for you. But, if like me you've struggled with every new UI and are searching for guiding principles, this book is great!
Jeff Staddon
04 May, 2006
Brilliant
This book is simply one of the best I have ever read. Joel's style is so funny, simple and expressive, and I enjoyed in every moment reading it. I read once that if someone realy understands the subject, then he must be able to explain it in simple way that almost everyone could understand. So, I think Joel truly knows what he's talking about, and not only in this book.
Berislav Vidakovic
27 March, 2006
Really nice reading about UI design
I would list two great points about the book:
- very nice book about User Interface design, a lot of valuable information & thoughts
- really nice English reading. Especially valuable for non-native speakers (like me) - easy to read, a lot of humor and live stories, you just make fun while reading
I can easily recommend the book to everyone interested in software development, not necessarily UI design.
Mikhail Pliskine
01 March, 2006
