Interface Design Document Design

User interfaces and supporting documentation are both supposed to help people when using a complex device. But often, these forms of support seem to come from different worlds. User interface designers, document designers, and researchers in both interface and document design share many goals, but are also separated by many barriers. In this book, user interface designers and documents designers from Microsoft Corporation and from Apple Computer, plus researchers from several universities try to bridge the gap between interface design and document design. They discuss opportunities for closer cooperation, and for more integrated and effective help for users of modern technology.

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. Spolsky'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 user interface 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.

Although numerous sources document aspects of user-centered design, there are few references that consider how a designer transforms the information gathered about users and their work into an effective user interface design. This book explains just how designers bridge that gap. A group of leading experts in GUI design describe their methods in the context of specific design projects, and while the projects, processes, and methods vary considerably, the common theme is building a bridge between user requirements and user interface design.

Layout; proportion and grids: invisible keys to successful layout; graphic design of spatial metaphors, display, and tools; an annotated bibliography for graphic design of spatial displays; typography; making type decisions; forms design; the tupography of complex documentation: computer programs; symbolism; clarity and consistency in icon design; icon design tips; icon design in a CAD/CAM graphical user interface: acase study; an annotated bibliography of signs, icons, and symbols; color, the ten commandments of color; an annotated bibliography of color; visualizing knowledge: charts, diagrams, and maps; chart design; ana nnotated bibliography of chart and diagram design; an annotated bibliography of chart and diagram design; an annotated bibliography of map design; screen design for user interfaces; common user-interface design; the user-interface standards manual as a tool for effective management; a comparison of graphical user interfaces; windowing systems; windowing-system overview; windows; menus; controls and control panels; query and message boxes; mouse/keyboard interface; analysis of common tasks; advantages and disadvantages; windowing-system component terminology; detailed system descriptions and comparisons; acknowledgments; bibliography; index; author's biography.

A guide for designing easy-to-use software, this book offers an on-the-job view of what it takes to create great products, offering practical tips and advice instead of forcing the reader to extrapolate from abstract psychological theory. "Human Interface" targets a wide range of design issues, from taming the incomprehensible interfaces of database systems and the Internet, to using sound and animation effectively in multimedia.

Software architecture—the conceptual glue that holds every phase of a project together for its many stakeholders—is widely recognized as a critical element in modern software development. Practitioners have increasingly discovered that close attention to a software system’s architecture pays valuable dividends. Without an architecture that is appropriate for the problem being solved, a project will stumble along or, most likely, fail. Even with a superb architecture, if that architecture is not well understood or well communicated the project is unlikely to succeed. Documenting Software Architectures, Second Edition, provides the most complete and current guidance, independent of language or notation, on how to capture an architecture in a commonly understandable form. Drawing on their extensive experience, the authors first help you decide what information to document, and then, with guidelines and examples (in various notations, including UML), show you how to express an architecture so that others can successfully build, use, and maintain a system from it. The book features rules for sound documentation, the goals and strategies of documentation, architectural views and styles, documentation for software interfaces and software behavior, and templates for capturing and organizing information to generate a coherent package. New and improved in this second edition: Coverage of architectural styles such as service-oriented architectures, multi-tier architectures, and data models Guidance for documentation in an Agile development environment Deeper treatment of documentation of rationale, reflecting best industrial practices Improved templates, reflecting years of use and feedback, and more documentation layout options A new, comprehensive example (available online), featuring documentation of a Web-based service-oriented system Reference guides for three important architecture documentation languages: UML, AADL, and SySML

Bringing together the results of more than 300 new design studies, an understanding of people, knowledge of hardware and software capabilities, and the author’s practical experience gained from 45 years of work with display-based systems, this book addresses interface and screen design from the user’s perspective. You will learn how to create an effective design methodology, design and organize screens and Web pages that encourage efficient comprehension and execution, and create screen icons and graphics that make displays easier and more comfortable to use.

This book show you how to design the user interface in a systematic and practical way. It bridges the gap between traditional programming perspective and human-computer interaction approaches.--[book cover].