GUI Design Essentials

by Sarah C. Yeo, Susan M. Weinschenk, Pamela Jamar

Developing software interfaces and company-wide GUI standards can be difficult, but it is nothing like having to continually redesign software that end users can't work with. This powerful book/CD-ROM package takes the uncertainty out of GUI design by providing you with everything you need to know to quickly design interfaces and your own GUI standards. Drawing upon their experience as leading interface designers, educators, and constultants, the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471175498
• ISBN13: 9780471175490
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.6" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Publisher misleads on contents of CD (?) - text is just fine

The authors write a nice, although somewhat expensive alternative to Cooper's "About Face," Howlett's "Visual Interface Design," and Mullet's "Designing Visual Interfaces," etc. However, the contents of the CD do not match the statements made on the cover of the book, nor the text within the book. For example, despite what the publisher states, I found no pdf files on the CD. I suspect that they are shipping different versions (?) of the CD with the same book. I called the publisher, they seem to deny this, or maybe they are oblivious to it. Maybe the CD is nothing special (as another reader, Jarrett, December 15, suggests). Oh well.

Excellent guide to the process of creating User Interfaces

This book provides an excellent and practical guide to the process of creating effective User Interfaces. I have used the GUI Design process as well as the Web design process successfully on a number of different projects. The techniques are described in a straight-forward, easy to understand manner. The guidelines and checklist templates are a great starting point. The User Interface Design Document template has been especially valuable for communicating how the interface should work to the development teams. It is quite easy to customize it to fit the needs of each project. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in introducing an Interface Design process to their development organization, or to anyone who needs to develop an effective Web site.

Proven, practical techniques covering a broad subject range

As usability consultants, we have used GUI Design Essentials as a reference for many client projects, large and small. We often recommend it as the 'one' book to buy, especially for programmers, users, and others who don't have extensive user interface design experience. We also use it ourselves as a reference and good source of examples. Two important strengths of the book are: 1) it is obviously based on practical experience, the techniques work; and 2) it covers a broad range of subjects. The book covers user interface design methodology (a step-by-step process), usability testing, and standards and guidelines for GUI and Web apps. For very in-depth coverage of any particular topic of interest, you might want to consider books that focus in specific areas, such as The Handbook of Usability Testing by Jeff Rubin, the Windows Interface Guidelines from Microsoft, and Designing Object-Oriented User Interfaces by Collins. The CDROM included is a bonus- we've used it as the basis for several corporate GUI standards projects. Although you will want to extend the topics, why reinvent the wheel on the basics?

A comprehensive, practical reference on GUI design.

GUI Design Essentials is the most practical reference that I have encountered that covers all aspects of GUI design. The title says it all. It provides you with the essentials on user-centered design, usability testing, web design, online help systems, and much more. I liked the fact that the book focused on the critical or essential elements with just enough supporting details to provide the reader with a good level of understanding. The methods and tools described can easily be immediately applied to real-life work. Having used the sample forms and documents from the book, they have proven to be extremely effective tools. The appendix containing the list of GUI design guidelines is like getting 2 books for the price of one. I would highly recommend this book if you are looking for a single source containing practical information on all areas of interface design.

A good, practical road map to interface design

Weinschenk's book provides the practical "how-to" of interface design, using sample projects to illustrate the process of designing a good interface. I particularly enjoyed her opening section, "A Tale of Two Software Projects." I found two main strengths in this book: It provides a step-by-step approach to the process of interface design, and she provides guidelines for all aspects of a windows-based interface. Therefore, if you're not sure how to approach the design of an interface, you can follow her guidelines to a successful conclusion. Similarly, if you need interface standards but aren't sure what all they should include or how to state them, you can't go wrong if you adopt the guidelines in this book for your own interface project. This book also provides forms and checklists to facilitate your design projects. An added bonus to the Weinschenk book is the CD-ROM that accompanies it, which provides some of the chapters in the book as Word 7.0 and PDF files so you can easily adopt and adapt the information for your own projects.