What’s on my Bookshelf

Alice Toth, Tuesday, January 9, 2007 @ 10:12 pm

Having recently been asked to review a book on CSS (which at first glance looks good but I'll go into details in a later post), it caused me to take a look at the crop of knowledge currently gracing my bookshelves. Hmmm, I thought. If I wanted to recommend two of those books, which two would I recommend? A nice little challenge. Deciding to keep the choices within the realm of the practical, rather than the theoretical, here's what I came up with.

First up is Designing Visual Interfaces, Communication Oriented Techniques by Kevin Mullet and Darrell Sano. The book begins with explaining the principles and elements of design and how they can be applied to user interface. There is no "one size fits all" solution but rather a discussion about techniques such as hierarchy, relationship, balance, etc., how they are used and why they're important in software design. The author also gets into module, programs and how structure, predictability and efficiency apply. Further chapters explain establishing modular units or using a grid layout. In other words, the book gives a great explanation of what design theory is and how it's the structure for well-designed user interfaces.

Next up, Designing from Both Sides of the Screen, How Designers and Engineers and Collaborate to Build Cooperative Technology, by Ellen Isaacs (interaction designer) and Alan Walendowski (software engineer). The book is divided into two parts: The Goal and The Process. The first part takes you through designing software with user centric design principles followed by the second section, which walks you through the process of building a software application illustrating what the authors did and, more importantly, why they did it. It's a good case study in creating technology that cooperates with people, shows how good designs help the user flow into their tasks instead of fighting them, and shows how design and engineering goals need not oppose each other. An good description of a theory and the application of same.

So there you have it, two recommendations off my bookshelf. The first promoting design principles and the second advocating user centric design. What's on your bookshelf?

user experience design

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