http://alistapart.com/ A mix of web topics, and has covered UI/UX from the earliest days.
Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
41–50 of 91 posts
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#42Joel Spolsky's "User Interface Design for Programmers" is concise, educational, entertaining... and free (even an easy-to-read all-in-one HTML page): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/fog0000000249.html Also highly recommend Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" (as others have already commented): http://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html
If there is one UI design book to read, "dont make me think" is it. And if you don't have time for it's already speedy read, the entire book gets summed up in the title: Don't make your users think about how to use your software.
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#43Here's a different perspective: the best UI is where you can get rid of most or all interaction.
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#44Cadence & Slang (https://cadence.cc/) is absolutely fantastic
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#45the stackoverflow equivalent for ui/ux provide some common tips and can help avoid a lot of pitfall.
http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=frequent
my favorite: http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/9946/should-i-use-yes-...
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#46Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug Information Dashboard Design - Stephen Few
Yes, this is the first book that came to my mind too because for any good UI design, you first need to get your priorities straight which is common sense of design comes first, the graphics and cosmetic part comes second (though they're not mutually exclusive).
On a related noted, I've often wondered how Material design and all these latest skeuomorphic designs kind of go against this advice of Don't make me think. Is it text, is it a button, is it a drop-down? You're making me think too much.
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#47Joel Spolsky's "User Interface Design for Programmers" is concise, educational, entertaining... and free (even an easy-to-read all-in-one HTML page): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/fog0000000249.html Also highly recommend Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" (as others have already commented): http://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html
From Joel Spolskey page:
> "Another example from the world of Microsoft Windows is the Alt+Tab key combination which switches to the "next" window. Most users would probably assume that it simply rotates among all available windows. If you have window A, B, and C, with A active, Alt+Tab should take you to B. Alt+Tab again would take you to C. Actually, what happens is that the second Alt+Tab takes you back to A. The only way to get to C is to hold down Alt and press Tab twice. It's a nice way to toggle between two applications, but almost nobody figures it out, because it's a slightly more complicated model than the rotate-among-available-windows model."
I don't think anybody who used OS before expects a different behavior, most users know that alt tab toggles between recent apps
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#48It's a little dated (is it sad that 2006 is "dated"?), but I still find "Designing Interfaces" by Jenifer Tidwell (it's an O'Reilly book) helpful once in a while for basic UI/interaction thoughts.
Agreed on this: it's handy because it has a catalog of design elements and tells you when you should and shouldn't use them. That's pretty helpful compared to more abstract theories about UI stuff, for some people.
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#49Joel Spolsky's "User Interface Design for Programmers" is concise, educational, entertaining... and free (even an easy-to-read all-in-one HTML page): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/fog0000000249.html Also highly recommend Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" (as others have already commented): http://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html
From Joel Spolskey page: > "Another example from the world of Microsoft Windows is the Alt+Tab key combination which switches to the "next" window. Most users would probably assume that it simply rotates among all available windows. If you have window A, B, and C, with A active, Alt+Tab should take you to B. Alt+Tab again would take you to C. Actually, what happens is that the second Alt+Tab takes you back to A. The…
Yes, it's a bit dated (check out those screenshots!)... but the fundamental concepts are still valid. He's trying to explain that you should make programs behave as the user would expect them to -- but it's up to you as the developer to use your judgement to know what the common expectations of the time and platform are.
Re: Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?
#50The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte All UI's are graphs at their heart
> All UI's are graphs at their heart
A bit of an overstatement, considering /bin/rm, Amazon Echo, NFC (e.g. Apple Pay), car pedals, shake gestures (e.g. camera activation on Moto X), and keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Win-L to lock the computer).
I know, you were probably talking about GUIs specifically, but how you interact with a GUI is not really covered by Tufte. I second the recommendation for The Humane Interface for that.