Terms and Conditions:

Clayton Lewis wrote:We've decided to make this book available as "shareware." That means we, the authors, have retained the copyright to the book, but we allow you to copy it and to make your own decision about how much it is worth. The details on copying restrictions and payment are included in a box at the end of every chapter, including this one.

From the Foreword:

The central goal of this book is to teach the reader how to design user interfaces that will enable people to learn computer systems quickly and use them effectively, efficiently, and comfortably. The interface issues addressed are primarily cognitive, that is, having to do with mental activities such as perception, memory, learning, and problem solving. Physical ergonomic issues such as keyboard height or display contrast are covered only briefly.

The principles presented in this book were developed primarily in the context of the interfaces to computer software and hardware, but they are also applicable to a wide variety of other machines, from complex equipment such as phone systems and video cameras to simple appliances like refrigerators and power tools. Simpler machines are sometimes informative examples of problems or solutions in interface design.

Intended Audience:

We've designed this book to be most useful for people who are actually developing user interfaces. That's in contrast to the full-time interface professionals who do research and evaluation in large corporations. We strongly believe that effective interactive systems require a commitment and an understanding throughout the entire development process. It just won't work to build a complete system and then, in the final stages of development, spread the interface over it like peanut butter.

With that in mind, some of the people who should be interested in this book are programmers, systems analysts, users and user-group representatives, technical writers, training coordinators, customer representatives, and managers at several levels. All of these positions have input into how the final system will look and act.