Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
by: Jenifer Tidwell
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Product Description:
Designing a good interface isn't easy. Users demand software that is well-behaved, good-looking, and easy to use. Your clients or managers demand originality and a short time to market. Your UI technology -- web applications, desktop software, even mobile devices -- may give you the tools you need, but little guidance on how to use them well.
UI designers over the years have refined the art of interface design, evolving many best practices and reusable ideas. If you learn these, and understand why the best user interfaces work so well, you too can design engaging and usable interfaces with less guesswork and more confidence.
"Designing Interfaces" captures those best practices as design patterns -- solutions to common design problems, tailored to the situation at hand. Each pattern contains practical advice that you can put to use immediately, plus a variety of examples illustrated in full color. You'll get recommendations, design alternatives, and warnings on when not to use them.
Each chapter's introduction describes key design concepts that are often misunderstood, such as affordances, visual hierarchy, navigational distance, and the use of color. These give you a deeper understanding of why the patterns work, and how to apply them with more insight.
A book can't design an interface for you -- no foolproof design process is given here -- but "Designing Interfaces" does give you concrete ideas that you can mix and recombine as you see fit. Experienced designers can use it as a sourcebook of ideas. Novice designers will find a roadmap to the world of interface and interaction design, with enough guidance to start using these patterns immediately.
Designing a good interface isn't easy. Users demand software that is well-behaved, good-looking, and easy to use. Your clients or managers demand originality and a short time to market. Your UI technology -- web applications, desktop software, even mobile devices -- may give you the tools you need, but little guidance on how to use them well.
UI designers over the years have refined the art of interface design, evolving many best practices and reusable ideas. If you learn these, and understand why the best user interfaces work so well, you too can design engaging and usable interfaces with less guesswork and more confidence.
"Designing Interfaces" captures those best practices as design patterns -- solutions to common design problems, tailored to the situation at hand. Each pattern contains practical advice that you can put to use immediately, plus a variety of examples illustrated in full color. You'll get recommendations, design alternatives, and warnings on when not to use them.
Each chapter's introduction describes key design concepts that are often misunderstood, such as affordances, visual hierarchy, navigational distance, and the use of color. These give you a deeper understanding of why the patterns work, and how to apply them with more insight.
A book can't design an interface for you -- no foolproof design process is given here -- but "Designing Interfaces" does give you concrete ideas that you can mix and recombine as you see fit. Experienced designers can use it as a sourcebook of ideas. Novice designers will find a roadmap to the world of interface and interaction design, with enough guidance to start using these patterns immediately.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Great foundation on interface design
This is the second book I have bought about interface design and it is the best one to date. I really like how the book breaks down the sections by devices and subject matter. It covers interfaces from desktops, mobile devices, to the internet. One area it did not talk about was console interfaces(like the Xbox360 or Wii). If you want to learn anything about how people manipulate game software, this book is not for you. That is where I give it 4 stars.
Much of interface design is about ... Read More
Rating: 
- practically useless
This book may be helpful to people who have never used a computer before, but there's really very little new information here.
Anyone using the web or just about any software has seen the basic UI elements discussed in the book and should be familiar enough with them to know how they work.
The most irritating element of the book -- apart from the lack of useful information -- is the constant referring of sections later in the book. All too often one section will mention a method ... Read More
Rating: 
- Required for anyone involved in UI design
Designing Interfaces is worth its weight in gold. The detail and thought that went into this book is outstanding. You'll learn the patterns, when to use them, when not to, and most importantly, why. You'll learn how to think about each interface element and why it either works for a given situation or not. This is a skill anybody involved in interface design would appreciate and should know how to do.
Rating: - A good reference and an easy read
The book contained a lot of valuable information, especially for someone new to interface design or digital design in general.If you've ever taken a design class or a programming class, you've probably covered most of what is in this book.Anything that you haven't officially covered will seem intuitive because you've been using software that follows these principles for many years.Not revolutionary, but the book is definitely a good reference to have on your shelf if you work with design, software, ... Read More
Rating: 
- A dictionary for designers
This book takes the form of a long list of design elements (e.g. trees and cascading lists), with examples and suggestions on when you should use them. And that's all. It might be useful as a reference for communicating ideas to members of a team, if you don't have the vocabulary for all of the elements described in this book, but don't expect to find inspiration or excitement in these pages.
- Great foundation on interface designThis is the second book I have bought about interface design and it is the best one to date. I really like how the book breaks down the sections by devices and subject matter. It covers interfaces from desktops, mobile devices, to the internet. One area it did not talk about was console interfaces(like the Xbox360 or Wii). If you want to learn anything about how people manipulate game software, this book is not for you. That is where I give it 4 stars.
Much of interface design is about ... Read More
- practically uselessThis book may be helpful to people who have never used a computer before, but there's really very little new information here.
Anyone using the web or just about any software has seen the basic UI elements discussed in the book and should be familiar enough with them to know how they work.
The most irritating element of the book -- apart from the lack of useful information -- is the constant referring of sections later in the book. All too often one section will mention a method ... Read More
- Required for anyone involved in UI designDesigning Interfaces is worth its weight in gold. The detail and thought that went into this book is outstanding. You'll learn the patterns, when to use them, when not to, and most importantly, why. You'll learn how to think about each interface element and why it either works for a given situation or not. This is a skill anybody involved in interface design would appreciate and should know how to do.
- A good reference and an easy readThe book contained a lot of valuable information, especially for someone new to interface design or digital design in general.If you've ever taken a design class or a programming class, you've probably covered most of what is in this book.Anything that you haven't officially covered will seem intuitive because you've been using software that follows these principles for many years.Not revolutionary, but the book is definitely a good reference to have on your shelf if you work with design, software, ... Read More
- A dictionary for designersThis book takes the form of a long list of design elements (e.g. trees and cascading lists), with examples and suggestions on when you should use them. And that's all. It might be useful as a reference for communicating ideas to members of a team, if you don't have the vocabulary for all of the elements described in this book, but don't expect to find inspiration or excitement in these pages.
