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Designing Interfaces
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.
What users do
Organizing the content
Getting around
Organizing the page
Doing things
Showing complex data
Getting input from users
Builders & editors
Making it look good
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