GUI Design Book Recommendations? 338
jetpack writes "I've always hated writing user interfaces, and graphical user interfaces in particular. However, I suspect that is largely because I have no clue how to write a good one. I don't mean the technical aspects, like using the APIs and so on. I mean what are the issues in designing an interface that is clean, easy to understand, and easy to use? What are things to be considered? What are things to be avoided? What are good over-all philosophies of UI design? To this end, I'd like to pick up a book or two (or three) and get my learn on. I'd appreciate some book suggestions from the UI experts in the Slashdot crowd."
User interfaces (Score:5, Informative)
The book is called "The design of everyday things" by Donald Norman.
Re:User interfaces (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the people on here will say something along the lines of one of the two variants:
1) Human-computer interaction is a discipline and you should read this HCI book or that HCI book. (Alan Cooper's About Face comes to mind).
2) Some vague advice about making look like the OS you're targetting.
It's all crap. Good interfaces are built by following a few principles:
1) KISS principle -- Keept It Simple, Stupid. You don't need to make every friggin' thing customizable and you don't want to overwhelm your users with a multitude of options.
2) Make it 'just work'. Automate as much as you can. Try to have configuration options that either will work in the vast majority of cases with the defaults, or have the application automatically try to determine the best settings for the user's environment. The best configuration dialog is one the user never has to see.
3) Softer software -- make things customizable, but in a way that they don't HAVE to be customized for a good user experience. Most users won't customize their environment very much. Always keep this in mind.
4) Present as little of the interface as necessary to accomplish the task at hand. Better to have more dialogs or dialog tabs with a few options than one big gargantuan dialog that has everything.
5) On layouts -- put the most commonly-used controls in a very prominent place and make them big and easy to click on. Things that are less likely to be used should be smaller and out of the way. Buttons are better than menus, but don't end up with so many buttons that the user gets lost -- again, fewer controls on more windows is better than more controls on fewer windows.
6) Don't use gaudy, distracting color schemes or fonts. Make it fit-in with the user's environment. If possible, on GNOME, you want to follow the GNOME HIG. Ditto for Mac. On Windows, follow the 'User Experience Guidelines.' But this shouldn't be your overriding priority. Don't scrimp on the other principles I've outlined just because you're trying to shoehorn your application into the OS vendor's model of what an application should look like.
Re:User interfaces (Score:5, Informative)
-This is related to #5 in that your audience determines what features should be prominent: the person answering the phone needs the "take message" feature to be easiest to reach....the person at the cash register needs the "ring up sale" feature to be easiest.
-This is related to #6 in that your audience determines what colors are good / bad (think "high contrast" color schemes for visually impaired, cultural implications of color, etc.)
-This is related to #3 in that if your audience is Slashdot readers, they expect skinning and an options screen with 50,000 selections.....if your audience is the owner of the basement you live it, they expect a single button that is labeled "Do What I Mean"
I'm sure that principle applies to the others in some way, too, but you get the idea.
Layne
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All these advises are really nice, but don't let your users learn everything from scratch. Unfortunately, even M$ and Apple sometimes forget this part. In most UI books, there is no distinction
Re:User interfaces (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone doesn't know anything about HCI and wants to make good UIs, I think it would be really helpful to do some reading. If I had to choose just one, it would definitely be Norman's Design of Everyday Things (which I saw others recommend, too).
One thing that HCI books do is not just recommend what to do, but give guidelines how to do it. For example, a good way to get early feedback on a UI is with prototypes. There are lots of different kinds of prototypes you might build, and each have pros and cons. A good book could help you decide which kind of prototype to use when.
Another example: you'd like to evaluate your UI somehow, to see what's good, what's bad, etc., right? But how? User studies are one that lots of people know about, and they have definite advantages, but they're really hard to do right, and they're really labor-entensive. The right HCI book will tell you about cheap evaluation methods, too, what the pros and cons are of the various methods, and help you decide which one(s) are right for your project.
Sounds to me a lot like your #6.Re: (Score:2)
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If it had even a slight bit of "wizardry" it would make my life much easier.
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Remember that each of those projects had one or more genuine HCI experts involved in the drafting of their guidelines. Do you know HCI better than the top experts in the field?
Read the guidelines. Learn them. Understand them thoroughly. Heck, read the guidelines from platforms other than the
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"Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug
It's a short, brilliant read, is mainly focused on web usability, but the principles can be extended to any UI design.
Really first-rate book - all content, no BS.
Rule #1: Don't make the user look stupid (Score:2, Informative)
HCI (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction [wikipedia.org]
"I have no clue how to write a good one." (Score:5, Interesting)
There is one important rule in creating a GUI: follow the same design principles as the target OS and applications with similar functionality as yours.
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Have ONE potential user try to use it as they would for its intended purpose. Then, eliminate the things that severely bother them until there are none. (Severe means things like, "Can't find a function after trying obvious ways of searching for it", takes a
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Wrong. Google knows good design. Lots of people know good design. Unfortunately, way too many people share your apathy towards the user.
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Google used to have a good design. But their search result pages have become worse.
The first line of google is:
"Web Images Maps News Video Gmail more"
And I am authenticated with Google, they know I don't have a Gmail account. They know I pretty much never use Maps and News. They know I use Groups and Scholar more regular than the 3 previously mentioned services. Then why don't they list those options. Also Go
Hall of Shame (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're developing for Windows... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If you're developing for Windows... (Score:4, Interesting)
Study Microsoft design for good design in the same vein as going to webpagesthatsuck.com/ [webpagesthatsuck.com] for learning good design. For example, if you have the "options" uder "file" in version 1.1 of your program, don't move it to "edit" in 2.1 and "tools" in 3.1 as Microsoft is wont to do.
-mcgrew
From the linked site (and I haven't put all the checklists in, because slashdot's horrid design gives an error message about too few characters per line):
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Re:If you're developing for Windows... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Of course, I'm in the camp of "give me a remote with 84 buttons and I'll figure out which one I want" instead of the camp of "give me a remote with 10 buttons and make them only do what I need"......I want the power, not the protection.
Layne
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I am with you on this one. But I'm an Office user of many, many years.
I was recently speaking with a relative who had been trying to use a previous version off MS Office, and some other suite (perhaps Corel?) and he indicated that Word 2007 was "so easy". Prior to retirement he had a secretary to worry about word processors.
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Something I do find interesting Is Office 2007 ribbon. A new and innovate take. if it works in the long term is something else, but at least they tried something else.
I just have to wait for MSFT to port it to the Mac.
art of interactive design (Score:5, Informative)
its great.
google books
Design of everyday things (Score:2)
Also, "The Inmates are Running the Asylum (why high tech products drive us crazy)" by Alan Cooper is quite good (although about a third of the book is just a pitch for the author's consultancy).
Mac and non-Mac (Score:2, Interesting)
Be prepared to use at least two design styles. There's the Mac way (and you'll find a lot of good guidelines in their Human Interface Guidelines [apple.com] for that), but, follow those on Windows and X11 and your applications will look rather strange and not at all platform native; even when using native UI controls.
I don't have any suggestions for books on good design, but, here's a classic site which covers some bad design mistakes: The User Interface Hall of Shame [mac.com]. The examples are fairly dated now, but, the prin
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-email client: Why the hell are the subject lines all darkened? Nothing in help about this. Ah, must be a "mail rule". Oh, there it is, I'll just turn it off. Wait, that option is all the way at the bottom of the screen, on top of the program launch icons. *click* No, I didn't want to load that program. Okay, I'll scroll down so that the butt
Listen (Score:3, Insightful)
Listening to your users enough.
What are things to be avoided?
Listening to your users too much.
Really, the whole thing boils down to balancing the above and, unfortunately, it's a very subjective thing.
I would suggest... (Score:4, Informative)
1] GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design Dont's and Dos [Morgan Kaufmann Publishers]
2] Designing Interfaces [O'Reilly]
the first to understand what not to do and the other one to get some good ideas to start from.
I really think any book will do, except any Jacob Nielsen's books about usability... I've read them at the very beginning of my career... I think it was jus a loss of time
Designing Interfaces (Score:2)
I'm no UI expert... (Score:3, Informative)
1. Split the elements into three categories:
a) Must set / vital parameters / things that can't have a default
b) Has a default, but users should change regularly
c) Nice to have - every other little setting
Make it very clear what the minimum effort is.
Show the second so users know they're there.
Hide the third behind an expander/button, for those that specificly look.
2. Group things logically by function
Those two things can be contradictory enough. I've met many UIs where either a) there's ten pages of configuration with one a-level option per page, or b) the advanced functions aren't logically ttached to the basic functions at all. If you can make an UI that cover those two well, I'd say you do better than 90% of the UIs out there.
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Be careful in choosing the right colors, know what a color means, and which feelings it induces to the user. There's an importa
Top ten list by HCI prof (Score:5, Informative)
1. Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, and Russell Beale: Human-Computer Interaction
2. Ben Shneiderman and Catherine Plaisant: Designing The User Interface
3. Donald A. Norman, The Design Of Everyday Things
4. Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers, and Helen Sharp: Interaction Design
5. Jef Raskin, The Humane Interface
6. Terry Winograd (ed.): Bringing Design to Software
7. Brenda Laurel (ed.): The Art of Human-Computer Interaction
8. Apple Computer: The Apple Software Design Guidelines
http://media.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/HCIBooks [rwth-aachen.de]
Keep in mind that testing your UI on real users is very important. Just because you think it's a good UI doesn't make it a good UI.
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Oh wait -- testing the UI. On users. I see.
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Also, consider reading Don't Make Me Think [sensible.com] by Steve Krug.
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One thing that many UI people state is that the UI is supposed to be an interface that will make sense to the user, i.e. relate to how the user will work, and not, as most interfaces are, to simply expose the inner working of the program to the user. Most users to do care how the program works. They only care how they work. Web sites make this mistake by exposing
The basics: (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Use it yourself, and rearrange the controls to get rid of any apparent awkwardness.
3. Give it to the actual end users, and be prepared to rearrange the controls again when you notice all the unexpected things they do to it.
4. Don't get cute. Use standard controls that people recognize.
5. Pay attention to keyboard shortcuts and tab order. Don't make the user use a pointing device.
By far the biggest thing is the willingness to refactor. You won't get it right the first time; that's almost impossible, and nothing is worse than a UI that is written to spec and then slavishly nailed to that spec even when the users complain about it. You'll probably find something that you thought would be a common operation is hardly ever done; get the annoying button out of their faces. And something else you thought would happen once a month happens every hour; bring the control out front for them.
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4. Don't get cute. Use standard controls that people recognize.
Same goes for icons ... make sure the icons are easy to distinguish among themselves, and if possible use ones wiht meanings that are already well-known. I remember one disastrous Linux app that had two identical-looking icons on one user dialog box, and no pop-up text to explain what they did. One closed out the whole app, losing all my work.
An excellent IBM presentation on GUI design (Score:2)
Programming as if People Mattered (Score:2, Informative)
Careful not to go down the road of the artsy fartsy web UI designers, as a lot of the other suggestions are.
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GUI design tips (Score:5, Insightful)
Tips are all over the internet. I'd start with the Alertbox by Jakob Nielson (ex-Sun employee, now a usability consultant) and anything his group has published on user interfaces. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ [useit.com]
My pet peeves in GUIs ... the designers ignore that people actually have to read the GUI, and treat it like it's supposed to be admired for artistic. For a GUI, bland and boring is good, functional is the goal.
Good GUI Design? (Score:2)
You have to look at and understand your audience intimately. Demographics matter, too. What works for 20-somethings might totally confuse 50-somethings.
And today, good GUI design is even made trickier by the expectations users have from using the best applications and web sites. If your application is very "MySpace"-like and is intended for that same audience, you'd better make sure it's
Bruce Tognazzini (Score:4, Informative)
HCI Theory (Score:2)
It doesn't really cover web stuff if that's what you're after, but the most of the principles are largely the same. Ha
Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines (Score:5, Insightful)
Along the same lines, I would recommend the original interface guidelines manuals for many of the early graphical operating systems, especially those for early PDA's, like GO's PenPoint, Apple's Newton OS, and the manual for General Magic's Magic Cap.
All of the aforementioned books are out of print, but any serious student of interfaced design should own all of these.
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Some suggestions (Score:3, Informative)
Bruce Tognazzini Tog on Interface (ISBN-13: 978-0201608427) A bit dated but the concepts and idaeas are what matters. He has a website as well as other books. http://www.asktog.com/ [asktog.com]
Finally, there are classics by Edwin Tufte you may want to checkout as well. He focuses on displaying information (mostly quantitative) in a manner to support understanding; and hates PowerPoint type presentations with a passion. Tufte has a website as well. http://www.edwardtufte.com/ [edwardtufte.com] His one day course ie excellant.
Tufte (Score:3, Interesting)
Because there's real-time data visualisation (as well as historic stuff), I've heard about the Tufte books before and so bought all four available at bookware.com.au - Beautiful Evidence, Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, and Visual Explanations.
Still waiting on them, probably won't be able to ap
A notebook (pen & paper) (Score:2)
Look at a few apps with good UIs, write jot down what elements you like about them. See if you can find elements you don't and jot those down.
Next, go to some similar apps with bad UIs, write down what they did wrong and what they are missing, in your oppinion.
You should actually get a fairly good idea of how to m
Spolsky. (Score:3, Informative)
I particularly User Interface Design for Programmers [joelonsoftware.com] by Joel Spolsky.
If you're designing web software, then read through the archives of Use It [useit.com] by Don Norman. I don't like his books - Designing Web Usability is the only paperback I've ever bought that had usability issues! But he's mostly on the ball.
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Even when he's w
I have (Score:2)
Interaction Design (Score:2)
This one helped me (Score:2)
This one helped me a lot: "The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design" by Microsoft Press. (ISBN 1-55615-679-0)
I'm sure it's out of date now (it targets Win95 & NT), but I got it so I could help test some Windows applications back in the day. It was a great help in learning how to lay things out on the screen, in dialog boxes, menus, etc. Even more importantly, I learned the rules for keyboard navigation -- it's amazing how much can be done without having to take hands off the keyboard. T
Well you can start by (Score:2)
http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/qtime.htm [mac.com]
While you're at it, Vista's explorer - yeah, don't copy anything from that either.
See more info here from me.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=364823&cid=21406737 [slashdot.org]
Specifically take note of what I whine about in the JPG's - it's that kind of shit which kills users.
Programming As If People Mattered (Score:2)
Dated, but simple and very much applicable today. Humorous segways and examples abound.
Top Books (Score:2)
About Face by Alan Cooper. Version 3 is out
Don't make me think by Steve Kung. This is for web.
Anything by Jakob Neilsen. Now mainly focuses on web but he is the main UI person around. Has a web site http://www.useit.com/ [useit.com]
GUI Bloopers by Jeff Johnson a little dated but far too much informaion about every aspect of the user interface.
Then you have the books for the language or framework you are working on. Java, Apple and Microsoft all have
Go to the Master: Joel Spolsky! (Score:2)
Here is the Amazon link [amazon.com]
He was also nice enough to put the book online for free: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html [joelonsoftware.com]
Read the HIGs -at least when they are well written (Score:2)
Gnomes HIG is decent too. Dunno about the current state of the Microsoft HIGs
KISS me (Score:2, Informative)
However, at the opposite end of the spectrum isn't Apple, but Google. Google does it right. Simple, clean, light, fast. There is little to no trouble finding any of the myriad things Google has to offer these days, yet the interface still isn't cluttered.
IMO if your interface
Google "gui hall of shame" (Score:2)
Google "gui hall of shame" [google.com]
Gui Bloopers (Score:2)
Another Helpful Book Rec... (Score:2)
Don't make them use the mouse... (Score:2)
Also, make the system intelligent. If a lot of the data entry is repetitive, build in some typeahead and use intelligence (e.g. a bill-to address usually IS the same as the ship-to address so provide for that). Get
Ignore the books (Score:2)
Good GUIs minimize the amount of physical user interactions required by the user to perform any action. Mouse down is an action, mouse up is an action moving the mouse 5mm is an action. You get the idea. You need to be aware of EVERY tiny action and try to eliminate as many as possible. If you must use a right click menu with 2-3 menus deep, provide a hotkey for the sam
"About Face" by Alan Cooper (Score:2)
Some example pointers: "Infinite undos - keep track of EVERYTHING done in the program, and let the go backward and forward through the changes", another: "Silently fail - when a user clicks on the wrong thing, DO NOT make a pop-up that says - 'You did something bad', just do nothi
Recommendation... (Score:2)
Ok-Cancel (Score:2)
OK-Cancel [ok-cancel.com]
Designing Interfaces (Score:2)
Taken purely from usability perspective, aims perfectly at developers.
It introduces a set of patterns (similar to to the famous coding patters by Boch et al. - should be known to any OO developer).
The patterns are easy to navigate and easy to apply - you don't have to be working 100% of your time on usability issues to be able to apply these recipies.
One minor downside, I think there is not enough focus on web side side of things in that book - the capabili
IAAUIDE (Score:2)
Has anyone tried Office 2007 (Score:3, Interesting)
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx [msdn.com]
I've read some documentation (some interesting videos too, but I can't seem to find them) on the justification for the shift in thinking - about how, for example, the explosion in the sheer volume of functionality makes packing every single function into a static menu structure somewhat impractical. To be honest, when I look at some other modern applications with their enormous menu systems, I'd actually have to agree.
While one may or may not argue the benefits / drawbacks of a specific implementation such as Office 2007, I think an interesting point of discussion is the growth of dynamic interfaces in general - that is, interfaces that adapt to the context of the current work that is being done, to display the functionality most important to a user based on that specific context. Adaptability may even be appropriate, as a computer learns what tasks a user attempts in specific circumstances, and then adjusts itself to try to make accomplishing those tasks easier in fewer steps.
Computers are becoming more and more powerful, and it should be an interesting challenge to try to package all this functionality in a way that doesn't overwhelm users with more and more complex interfaces.
Platform and Purpose (Score:2)
I think that three things determine what guidelines you should be looking at-
Platform - Obviously different OSes call for d
Designing The Obvious (Score:2)
Do not repeat the mistake of others.... (Score:2)
human interface design (Score:2)
IMHO the mac gui through it's various permutations (mac os 9/next/os x) is still one of the best gui's out there. sure there are other gui's that have a lot of bells and whistles that the mac os is missing(3d desktop and jello effects of beryl/compiz,desktop gadgets of vista, better multi-button integration) but as far as consistency, user feedback, and ease of use, the mac gui still wins hands
The Original Human Interface Guidelines (Score:2)
A few notes from an interaction designer. (Score:2)
As for recommended reading, you might want to check out:
The Art Of Interaction Design by Chris Crawford
Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge
The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin
You might also consider subscribing to a design publication like Communication Arts.
Good User inteface Design Tips... (Score:4, Interesting)
From http://toastytech.com/guis/uirant.html [toastytech.com]
General application user interface guidelines:
* Always use cute icons, buttons, and graphics. Everyone loves big red hearts, pink bunnies, and yellow smiley faces.
* Don't be afraid to experiment with colors!
* Your application should play fun sounds while operating to keep the users entertained.
* Never, ever, under any circumstance use the OS-native graphical controls or widgets. Users get bored of the same old buttons, text boxes, and stuff.
* When possible, disable window management and use unusual, oddly placed graphics for the windowing functions such as the window close option.
* When writing your own controls or widgets, make absolutely sure they look and feel nothing like the OS-native widgets or anything else the user might expect. Otherwise you might accidentally make the user think that your application is actually designed for their OS.
* Use your own creative ideas on how a "save as" dialog should look and work. Built in ones are always too limiting.
* It is important that the user should never be able to tell the difference between a checked and unchecked check box or option box.
* Always use obscure or poorly drawn graphics for your tool bar buttons, and never put text on them.
* Avoid including a preferences or options dialog. Instead, let the user use the standard OS provided text editor or an editor of their choosing to edit text configuration files.
* Users need time to think about what they are doing and get coffee. Your application should always take at least 5 minutes to load even on the fastest available computer.
* Make sure an accidental double-click on a single-click item does something really nasty or unexpected.
* Tool tips are the perfect way to display critical information.
* To get the most screen space, force your application to always run maximized.
* Always make the default positions of floating properties windows cover something important.
* Use the most exotic fonts you can find.
* Your application's user interface should be flexible and customizable to the point where if the user accidentally sneezes on the mouse or keyboard they will have to spend the next half an hour setting things back.
* Let a 5-year old draw your graphics, including your corporate logo.
* File browsing dialogs are not needed, users can easily remember and type in long file paths.
* Design your application so it requires the user to set their tiny monitor to 10512*7430.
* Always crash at a critical step and then display a fake apology to the user.
* It is a mistake to make use of application hooks in the native desktop environment such as new file templates, file associations, or program menu icons.
* The exception to the above is placing icons in the system tray. Place as many icons as you can in the system tray and make sure that the user can not remove them.
* If your program implements keyboard shortcuts be original and make them completely different from any other applications.
* Rent extra UI space in your application out for advertising. Advertising benefits the users and y
Re:Depends (Score:4, Insightful)
-who is going to be using it and their relitive understanding of what is happening
-what
-what is it that i am having to show the user
-what is it that they want to do
-where (as in environment) is this going to be used? (sales register - production floor - pda on the go - person at random cube desk)
-why is this application even existing what is it's true purpose
once you answer the w's you can then figure out the
-how
so that it meets what you want in the w's
also remember to include the users in the design.. their info is invaluable - as they are the ones that will decide if the app survives.. you will hate nothing more than to write something you like and think is wonderful only to see it sit idle or have people bitch all day about it
- also note that you learn from experience.. you will not get it right the first time..
Re:Depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. "Form follows function" is one of the main tenants of good design. Make your toaster as pretty as you like, but don't forget that its function is to make toast, with the least amount of effort for the toaster user as possible.
If you make your toaster so that it looks like a pig, fine, but if you use the pig's snout as a lever to make the bread go down, you have a shitty design. It should be obvious to the user HOW to make the bread go down.
If your user needs to RTFM, you have failed in your attempt to design well.
-mcgrew
Pig Toaster - duh (Score:4, Funny)
Well duh, any good Pig toaster obviously would use the pig's tail for a lever!
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Layne
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Command lines are easier to schedule and include in custom batch scripts
Command lines allow input prior to the program loading
Both have their place.
The big problem I have is that most administrators* that rely on the command line (in particular DBA's using SQL*Plus) don't help themselves out and manually enter that string of commands instead of batching them up or writing a GUI to simplify their normal tasks. (* administrat
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You mean that they consistently change where things are for no good reason, between versions of Windows? Because I have to say, that's my favorite feature when Windows-users look to me for support and I don't have a VMware image in front of me. It'd be one thing if I had to support it full-time, but even though I've used every version of Windows since 3.11, it's no longer my primary operating system, and hasn't been for years. (In fact, I seldom use it outside of VMware). Trust me, it's a pain rememberin
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This is the Designer's Bible of sorts. Although it predates most modern computer UI design elements, the concepts are still extremely valuable. As a matter of fact, I'd say that most bad UI design wouldn't exist if people understood the knowledge offered in this book. I'd suggest reading this as a foundation, then buying other books that are UI specific.
p.s. If you see The Psychology of Everday Things, don't be confused, as that is the original title of
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Nearly every piece of advice is trite ("Design principle: Use noneditable controls for output-only text"). There's very little depth or thinking beyond the completely obvious. You will learn more from any other book (on any topic) than from this book.
And yet I suspect that from where we're sitting, each one of us could throw a rock and hit half a dozen pieces of software that fail to follow even that basic rule.
Part of the purpose of textbooks is codify good practices. They're not there to assume you know everything. 'Code Complete' would be a short book if McConnell had assumed you knew everything already.
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Here's a list [ratz.com] of her earlier books in the "Non-Designer's" series and more. She also has a list of useful resources for designers which includes her stuff and other stuff at one of her sites.
Quicktime player...one of the worst designs ever. (Score:3, Insightful)
A book...? How about Joel Spolsky's "User Interface design for programmers"?
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html [joelonsoftware.com]