introduction
key writings
pictures
interaction
standards
|
key writings
This part of the
Design Guide looks at key writings about site design: what
works, the design process, models. The separate electronic
publishing guide
explores academic and business publishing online.
does it work?
Despite the explosive
growth in the number of websites - the National Office for
the Information Economy (NOIE)
suggests that most Australian businesses are now
"online" - the literature about what works on
the web (and why) remains quite thin. Much of it is
contentious.
Jakob Nielsen's Designing
Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity
(Indianapolis, New Riders 99) is strongly recommended.
It's based on extensive
empirical studies, is well illustrated, and discusses both
principles and practice in language that's understandable
by webheads and the people who employ them. If you've only
got time for one book on web design, this is the one.
Nielsen's online Alertbox
newsletter is essential reading.
It's always
entertaining and frequently iconoclastic; you may not
agree with what he says but Alertbox and other
documents on his Useit
site will make you think. His November 2000 analysis
of Flash for example comments
Although multimedia has
its role on the Web, current Flash technology tends to
discourage usability for three reasons: it makes bad
design more likely, it breaks with the Web’s
fundamental interaction style, and it consumes resources
that would be better spent enhancing a site’s core
value.
Well put, but they're
fighting words if your webhead's infatuated with things
that move around the screen.
Nielsen and business partner
Donald Norman have written extensively. Works of
particular significance are Norman's The Invisible Computer
(Cambridge, MIT Press 98) and Nielsen's Usability
Engineering (New York, Academic Press 93). Norman
co-edited User Centered System Design: New Perspectives
on Human-Computer Interaction (Hillsdale, Erlbaum 86).
The second edition of
Yale University's masterful Web Style Guide: Basic
Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (New Haven,
Yale Uni Press 99) by Patrick Lynch & Sarah Horton is
now available.
It complements Nielsen and has a
practical approach to contentious issues such as the use
of Cascading Style Sheets (an emerging web standard).
There's an online
version.
Information
Architecture for the World Wide Web (Sebastopol,
O'Reilly 98) by Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville is a
second choice after Nielsen.
other works
Other sources worthy of
investigation are Web Site Usability: A Designer's
Guide by J Spool, T DeAngelo & others (New York,
Academic Press 98), the excellent collection of essays in Information
Design (Cambridge, MIT Press 99) edited by Robert
Jacobson and David Shenk's The End of Patience: More
Notes of Caution on the Information Revolution
(Indianapolis, Indiana Uni Press 99). The latter is more
significant than his overrated Data Smog (New York,
Harper 97).
Ben Schneiderman's Designing
The User Interface: Strategies for Effective
Human-Computer Interaction (Reading, Addison-Wesley
98) is excellent. There's a companion site.
Jef Raskin's recent The Humane Interface: New
Directions for Designing Interactive Systems (Reading,
Addison-Wesley 00) offers insights from one of the fathers
of Apple's 'people-centred' computing.
Don't be deterred by the
title (or cover) of Dust or Magic: Secrets of
Successful Multimedia Design (Reading, Addison-Wesley
00) by Bob Hughes. It's a readable and intelligent
discussion of the design process and some the lessons from
particular projects.
Jim McCarthy's Dynamics of
Software Development (Redmond, Microsoft Press 95) and
Managing The Design Factory: A Product Developer's
Toolkit (New York, Free Press 97) by Donald Reinertsen
offer other perspectives.
Fred Moody's provided in
two accounts of why digital projects go wrong. His I
Sing The Body Electronic (New York, Viking 95) is an
entertaining and, alas, apparently accurate picture of the
Encarta project and life as a Microsoft net-slave. The
Visionary Position: Mapping The Virtual World (London,
Allen Lane 99) looks at VR design.
The Usable Web site
provides more links to web usability resources than most
people will use, although the site's structure encourages
browsing and the 'aha!' that signals you've found a silver
bullet. The Usability Professionals' Association (UPA)
has an excellent range of resources about 'usability' in
general, including exhaustive online bibliographies.
The Inmates Are
Running The Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy
and How to Restore The Sanity by design guru Alan Cooper
is exciting and insightful. Don't be put off by the glitzy
title - it's all uphill after page one.
Cooper's very detailed About
Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design (Foster
City, IDG 95) is a classic.
Jeffrey Zeldman
has one of the more entertaining and thoughtful sites
promoting the work of design companies or design
philosophies. Bruce Tognazzini's online AskTog
column is more brash than Nielsen but good value.
best (and worst)
of the web
Among the 'best
of'/'worst of' guides (and 'killer' and 'turkey' awards in
print and online) two books stand out. Flanders &
Willis' Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design By
Looking At Bad Design (San Francisco, Sybex 98) is
available online
and in old fashioned multicoloured cellulose.
The controversial Creating
Killer Web Sites: The Art of Third-Generation Site Design
(Indianapolis, Hayden 97) by David Siegel has a companion site.
A visit to the Bad Designs site
may be more useful.
Rightly criticised by Nielsen, San Francisco digital kool
kat Siegel is primarily of interest for 'high end' sites,
ie ones where you have a million $ for starters or a
legion of turtlenecks and a passion for cutting edge
design. His sites may not 'work' for your market, but
they're worth exploring as an example of what can be done.
Siegel's recent Futurize
Your Enterprise (New York, Wiley 99) supplies Mr
Cool's vision of the digital future (you can have a chip
implanted in your scalp as a remote control for your
garage door), along with more useful case studies.
next part (2: text &
image)
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