Through The Interface

In providing a theoretical framework for understanding human- computer interaction as well as design of user interfaces, this book combines elements of anthropology, psychology, cognitive science, software engineering, and computer science. The framework examines the everyday work practices of users when analyzing and designing computer applications. The text advocates the unique theory that computer application design is fundamentally a collective activity in which the various practices of the participants meet in a process of mutual learning.

In providing a theoretical framework for understanding human- computer interaction as well as design of user interfaces, this book combines elements of anthropology, psychology, cognitive science, software engineering, and computer science. The framework examines the everyday work practices of users when analyzing and designing computer applications. The text advocates the unique theory that computer application design is fundamentally a collective activity in which the various practices of the participants meet in a process of mutual learning.

Our love affair with the digital interface is out of control. We’ve embraced it in the boardroom, the bedroom, and the bathroom. Screens have taken over our lives. Most people spend over eight hours a day staring at a screen, and some “technological innovators” are hoping to grab even more of your eyeball time. You have screens in your pocket, in your car, on your appliances, and maybe even on your face. Average smartphone users check their phones 150 times a day, responding to the addictive buzz of Facebook or emails or Twitter. Are you sick? There’s an app for that! Need to pray? There’s an app for that! Dead? Well, there’s an app for that, too! And most apps are intentionally addictive distractions that end up taking our attention away from things like family, friends, sleep, and oncoming traffic. There’s a better way. In this book, innovator Golden Krishna challenges our world of nagging, screen-based bondage, and shows how we can build a technologically advanced world without digital interfaces. In his insightful, raw, and often hilarious criticism, Golden reveals fascinating ways to think beyond screens using three principles that lead to more meaningful innovation. Whether you’re working in technology, or just wary of a gadget-filled future, you’ll be enlighted and entertained while discovering that the best interface is no interface.

Effective interface animation deftly combines form and function to improve feedback, aid in orientation, direct attention, show causality, and express your brand’s personality. Designing Interface Animation shows you how to create web animation that balances purpose and style while blending seamlessly into the user’s experience. This book is a crash course in motion design theory and practice for web designers, UX professionals, and front-end developers alike.

"Hackos and Redish wisely offer us the three things we most need about user and task analysis: practical advice, practical advice, and practical advice." -Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland "This book is well written, thorough, and loaded with techniques, examples, and resources that bring analysis to everyone." -Marcia L. Conner, Director of Usability & Learnability PeopleSoft, Inc. User and Task Analysis for Interface Design helps you design a great user interface by focusing on the most important step in the process -the first one. You learn to go out and observe your users at work, whether they are employees of your company or people in customer organizations. You learn to find out what your users really need, not by asking them what they want, but by going through a process of understanding what they are trying to accomplish. JoAnn Hackos and Janice (Ginny) Redish, internationally known experts in usable design, take you through a step-by-step process to conduct a user and task analysis. You learn: * How interface designers use user and task analysis to build successful interfaces * Why knowledge of users, their tasks, and their environments is critical to successful design * How to prepare and set up your site visits * How to select and train your user and task analysis team * What observations to make, questions to ask, and questions to avoid * How to record and report what you have learned to your development team members * How to turn the information you've gathered into design ideas * How to create paper prototypes of your interface design * How to conduct usability tests with your prototypes to find out if you're on the right track. This book includes many examples of design successes and challenges for products of every kind.

A cultural theory of the interface as a relation that is both ubiquitous and elusive, drawing on disciplines from cultural theory to architecture. In this book, Branden Hookway considers the interface not as technology but as a form of relationship with technology. The interface, Hookway proposes, is at once ubiquitous and hidden from view. It is both the bottleneck through which our relationship to technology must pass and a productive encounter embedded within the use of technology. It is a site of contestation—between human and machine, between the material and the social, between the political and the technological—that both defines and elides differences. A virtuoso in multiple disciplines, Hookway offers a theory of the interface that draws on cultural theory, political theory, philosophy, art, architecture, new media, and the history of science and technology. He argues that the theoretical mechanism of the interface offers a powerful approach to questions of the human relationship to technology. Hookway finds the origin of the term interface in nineteenth-century fluid dynamics and traces its migration to thermodynamics, information theory, and cybernetics. He discusses issues of subject formation, agency, power, and control, within contexts that include technology, politics, and the social role of games. He considers the technological augmentation of humans and the human-machine system, discussing notions of embodied intelligence. Hookway views the figure of the subject as both receiver and active producer in processes of subjectification. The interface, he argues, stands in a relation both alien and intimate, vertiginous and orienting to those who cross its threshold.

Do you need a break from all the code - intensive, heavily technical books you usually pour over? Interface visionary Bruce & "Tog & " Tognazziniwill refocus your sights on the horizon with an eye - opening view of how the computer and communication industries together are poised to transform our home, education, and work lives. This readable book offers revealing, provocative, and sometimes controversial insights on a broad sampling of technology topics from quality management to the meaning of standards. Taken together, these insights furnish a forward - looking blueprint for successful software development for the future.

Interfaces within computers, computing, and programming are consistently evolving and continue to be relevant to computer science as it progresses. Advancements in human-computer interactions, their aesthetic appeal, ease of use, and learnability are made possible due to the creation of user interfaces and result in further growth in science, aesthetics, and practical applications. Interface Support for Creativity, Productivity, and Expression in Computer Graphics is a collection of innovative research on usability, the apps humans use, and their sensory environment. While highlighting topics such as image datasets, augmented reality, and visual storytelling, this book is ideally designed for researchers, academicians, graphic designers, programmers, software developers, educators, multimedia specialists, and students seeking current research on uniting digital content with the physicality of the device through applications, thus addressing sensory perception.