Book description:

Most programmers' fear of user interface (UI) programming comes from their fear of doing UI design. They think that UI design is like graphic design - the mysterious process by which creative, latte-drinking, all-black-wearing people produce cool-looking, artistic pieces. Most programmers see themselves as analytic, logical thinkers instead - strong at reasoning, weak on artistic judgment, and incapable of doing UI design.

In this brilliantly readable book, author Joel Spolsky proposes simple, logical rules that can be applied without any artistic talent to improve any user interface, from traditional GUI applications to websites to consumer electronics. Spolky?s primary axiom, the importance of bringing the program model in line with the user model, is both rational and simple.

In a fun and entertaining way, Spolky makes UI design easy for programmers to grasp. After reading User Interface Design for Programmers, you'll know how to design interfaces with the user in mind. You'll learn the important principles that underlie all good UI design, and you'll learn how to perform usability testing that works.

The first 9 chapters are available for free on Spolky?s website. The complete version with the other 7 chapters is available in print from Apress.

Reviews:

Slashdot

:) "In summary, the book is aimed at programmers without much design experience and Spolsky does a great job of hitting his mark. I think product managers without much design experience would benefit as well, as it provides a good basis for thinking about user interface design."

ACCU Reviews

:) "This book should be compulsory reading for anyone designing man-machine interfaces. This book could also be called User Interface Annoyances or The Dummy's Guide to irritating your users. "

gadgetopia.com

:) "The book is full of good ideas and really solid, non-frilly advice. Joel's obvious experience saturates every page (I gather he did the UI for the ISP Juno, and was on the Microsoft Excel team). It's full-color with glossy pages and scads of screen caps."

Amazon.com

:( "As such, I think this is a book that will only please the programmer who likes to do minimal research and/or feels they do not have the time to devote to a better treatment of this subject."

:) "This book, in a quick 150 pages, shows programmers why interaction designers will spend, say, two days worrying about a couple of words or the placement of two buttons. "