User Interface Design for Programmers
by Joel Spolsky
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joel SpolskyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-06-26
ISBN: 1893115941
Number of pages: 159
Publisher: Apress
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Book Reviews of User Interface Design for Programmers
Book Review: Some good ideas, some nonsense
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Summary of User Interface Design for Programmers
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.
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