Developing User Interfaces (Wiley Professional Computing) - Softcover

Hix, Deborah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471578134 ISBN 13: 9780471578130

Publisher: John Wiley &Sons, 1993

Synopsis

Developing User Interfaces Ensuring Usability Through Product & Process "This book is an important milestone in our progress toward embracing user-centered design. This is the first book to emphasize process.[it] details a pragmatic approach to the interface development process in a way that is immediately useful to practitioners struggling to produce usable interfaces." --James D. Foley, Georgia Tech So you want to develop user interfaces for interactive systems? This practical book will show you how to do just that. Developing User Interfaces is about ensuring high usability through the user interface development process independently of widgets, software, toolkits, and implementation considerations. The hands-on approach of this book uses practical exercises to apply the material presented with a suggested solution for each exercise. You will learn a quantitative approach to usability goals, usability evaluation, and management of the interface development process. Developing User Interfaces shows how to:
* Write a customized style guide and apply human factor guidelines to your interface designs
* Understand and know when to use currently available interaction styles in your interface designs
* Understand and apply the concept of an iterative life cycle for user interface development
* Use behavioral, user-centered representation techniques for capturing your interface designs
* Establish usability specifications to measure quantitatively the usability of your interface
* Build effective rapid prototypes of your interface designs
* Carry out formative usability evaluation as your interface evolves
* Perform cost/benefit and other analyses to determine which changes to the interface will have the biggest impact on usability

About this title

About the Author

About the authors DEBORAH HIX and H. REX HARTSON are researchers and faculty members at Virginia Tech (VPI and SU), where they specialize in the design and development of user interfaces. Both have extensive consulting and training experience in human-computer interaction for a broad variety of organizations in business, industry, and government.

From the Back Cover

Developing User Interfaces Ensuring Usability Through Product & Process "This book is an important milestone in our progress toward embracing user-centered design. This is the first book to emphasize process…[it] details a pragmatic approach to the interface development process in a way that is immediately useful to practitioners struggling to produce usable interfaces." —James D. Foley, Georgia Tech So you want to develop user interfaces for interactive systems? This practical book will show you how to do just that. Developing User Interfaces is about ensuring high usability through the user interface development process independently of widgets, software, toolkits, and implementation considerations. The hands-on approach of this book uses practical exercises to apply the material presented with a suggested solution for each exercise. You will learn a quantitative approach to usability goals, usability evaluation, and management of the interface development process. Developing User Interfaces shows how to:

• Write a customized style guide and apply human factor guidelines to your interface designs
• Understand and know when to use currently available interaction styles in your interface designs
• Understand and apply the concept of an iterative life cycle for user interface development
• Use behavioral, user-centered representation techniques for capturing your interface designs
• Establish usability specifications to measure quantitatively the usability of your interface
• Build effective rapid prototypes of your interface designs
• Carry out formative usability evaluation as your interface evolves
• Perform cost/benefit and other analyses to determine which changes to the interface will have the biggest impact on usability

Reviews

The ultimate aim of desktop computing is to make computing more transparent and part of our everyday lives. Unfortunately, computers have not yet become part of the home and office landscape like telephones and photocopiers. Why? According to Hix and Hartson of Virginia Tech, it's because of poorly designed user interfaces. The first two chapters help us think about the product-that is, an interface-itself, not in a vacuum but in concert with potential users. The underlying premise is that "the user should not have to adapt to the interface." The process of developing an interface fills the rest of the book. Designed for students exploring interfaces and more experienced programmers, this book is a practical rather than philosophic examination of computer interactions with users.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Wiley &Sons
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471578134
• ISBN 13: 9780471578130
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 412