Link To Content
0.1 What's This Book All About?
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.
0.1.1 Who Should Be Reading the Book?
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.
0.1.2 What Is the User Interface?
The basic user interface is usually understood to include things like menus, windows, the keyboard, the mouse, the "beeps" and other sounds the computer makes, and in general, all the information channels that allow the user and the computer to communicate.
Of course, using a modern computer system also involves reading manuals, calling help lines, attending training classes, asking questions of colleagues, and trying to puzzle out how software operates. A successful computer system or software package supports those activities, so that support is part of the user interface too.
But in a sense, all of these parts are the "peanut butter" we mentioned in the previous section. No matter how well they are crafted, the interface will be a failure if the underlying system doesn't do what the user needs, in a way that the user finds appropriate. In other words, the system has to match the users' tasks. That's why the book's central message is the need for "task-centered" design, and that's why the design of the user interface can't be separated from the design of the rest of the system.
0.1.3 What Kind of User Interfaces Does This Book Cover?
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.
0.1.4 Why Focus on Design?
This book describes design processes that help to produce good interfaces. The focus on process instead of end result deserves some explanation. Why don't we simply describe what a good interface is and leave the reader to create interfaces that fit that description?
There are several reasons. An interface has to be matched to the task it will support, as well as to the users who will work with it. There is an infinite variety of tasks and users, so there's no simple definition of a "good" interface. There have been many attempts to give broad, general guidelines for good interfaces, but those guidelines are usually too vague to be of much use. For example, a general guideline might say, "Give adequate feedback." But how will the designer determine what's "adequate"?
More specific guidelines for elements of the final interface have also been developed, describing such elements as how menus should be designed, how to label icons, and so forth. These guidelines also have problems. It's impossible to cover every possible combination of task, user, and interface technology, so no set of specific guidelines can be complete. Even so, lists of specific guidelines are often so large and cumbersome that practicing designers find them very difficult to use. Further, in a given situation there are often several contradictory guidelines, and the designer has to rely on intuition to decide which are most important.
We might make an analogy between a designing a successful interface and a cutting a piece of string to the "right" length. General guidelines for the length of a piece of string, such as "long enough to do the job," aren't very helpful; and a list of specific definitions of the correct length for every purpose would be endless: 6 inches to tie up sagging flowers, 42 inches for a small package, 78 inches to tie down the trunk on an old VW, etc. But it's easy to describe a process that produces the right length: start with a very long piece of string, tie up your plant, package, car, or whatever, and then cut off the string that's not being used. Similarly, instead of specifying all the characteristics of the finished interface, this book present a design process that can produce good interfaces.
This is not to say that simply following the design process will magically produce a successful interface every time. The designer using the process must make many decisions along the way, relying on knowledge of users, their cognitive skills and limitations, and their tasks. In addition, the interface design process will only be successful if it is integrated into the software production process as a whole. This book presents basic information about all of these issues, and it contains pointers to other books and articles containing further useful information. All this material is organized in the context of the design process.
0.1 What's This Book All About?
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.
0.1.1 Who Should Be Reading the Book?
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.
0.1.2 What Is the User Interface?
The basic user interface is usually understood to include things like menus, windows, the keyboard, the mouse, the "beeps" and other sounds the computer makes, and in general, all the information channels that allow the user and the computer to communicate.
Of course, using a modern computer system also involves reading manuals, calling help lines, attending training classes, asking questions of colleagues, and trying to puzzle out how software operates. A successful computer system or software package supports those activities, so that support is part of the user interface too.
But in a sense, all of these parts are the "peanut butter" we mentioned in the previous section. No matter how well they are crafted, the interface will be a failure if the underlying system doesn't do what the user needs, in a way that the user finds appropriate. In other words, the system has to match the users' tasks. That's why the book's central message is the need for "task-centered" design, and that's why the design of the user interface can't be separated from the design of the rest of the system.
0.1.3 What Kind of User Interfaces Does This Book Cover?
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.
0.1.4 Why Focus on Design?
This book describes design processes that help to produce good interfaces. The focus on process instead of end result deserves some explanation. Why don't we simply describe what a good interface is and leave the reader to create interfaces that fit that description?
There are several reasons. An interface has to be matched to the task it will support, as well as to the users who will work with it. There is an infinite variety of tasks and users, so there's no simple definition of a "good" interface. There have been many attempts to give broad, general guidelines for good interfaces, but those guidelines are usually too vague to be of much use. For example, a general guideline might say, "Give adequate feedback." But how will the designer determine what's "adequate"?
More specific guidelines for elements of the final interface have also been developed, describing such elements as how menus should be designed, how to label icons, and so forth. These guidelines also have problems. It's impossible to cover every possible combination of task, user, and interface technology, so no set of specific guidelines can be complete. Even so, lists of specific guidelines are often so large and cumbersome that practicing designers find them very difficult to use. Further, in a given situation there are often several contradictory guidelines, and the designer has to rely on intuition to decide which are most important.
We might make an analogy between a designing a successful interface and a cutting a piece of string to the "right" length. General guidelines for the length of a piece of string, such as "long enough to do the job," aren't very helpful; and a list of specific definitions of the correct length for every purpose would be endless: 6 inches to tie up sagging flowers, 42 inches for a small package, 78 inches to tie down the trunk on an old VW, etc. But it's easy to describe a process that produces the right length: start with a very long piece of string, tie up your plant, package, car, or whatever, and then cut off the string that's not being used. Similarly, instead of specifying all the characteristics of the finished interface, this book present a design process that can produce good interfaces.
This is not to say that simply following the design process will magically produce a successful interface every time. The designer using the process must make many decisions along the way, relying on knowledge of users, their cognitive skills and limitations, and their tasks. In addition, the interface design process will only be successful if it is integrated into the software production process as a whole. This book presents basic information about all of these issues, and it contains pointers to other books and articles containing further useful information. All this material is organized in the context of the design process.
