Ask HC: Which books on user interface design do you wish your CEO/Cofounders would read?

"The Non-Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams.

It was written without the web in mind. It's mostly about typography and spacing for posters, business cards, flyers, etc. But it translates suprisingly well to web design.

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-Willia...

I've done a little bit of consulting on interface design - even managed to have a site we did mentioned by Jakob Nielsen in a list of ten greatest redesigns. My take on UI is that it's not about reading books but all about people. Which is probably why a lot of programmers are terrible at UI (not meaning to hurt anyone here, just stating my opinion...) Here is how I work:

1) I constantly ask "will my mother understand this". If the answer is no simplify it. And my mother doesn't know that a page can be resized...

2) It's all about consistency. Links, textboxes, etc. should be the same across the site.

3) Hallway usability testing. make simple HTML mock-ups and watch a few people play with them - preferably your moms friends. This will tell you a lot about where the cranks are.

4) Stick to standards. Don't get all fancy and make your text fields arty and bleeding edge just because you can: your mom won't understand it.

5) Don't use flash unless you really really need to.

But the most important thing you can do to get better at user interfaces is to go to the local coffeshop, find a nice girl, chat her up, start talking about computers and realise how little she actually knows about how things work. There's a fair chance she might not even know what a browser is. Do this a few times - the experience is enlightening. Besides you'll get out and have a good time with some girls that think you're really smart :-)

Yes and no.

While I understand your point about meddling CEOs, having one that is aware of the ins and outs of UI and can understand the competitive advantage of having good design can only be beneficial.

Why you assume that devs not understanding anything but code is a good thing though is beyond me. This is what happens in the enterprise, and look at the products they give us.

Yes, good point JoseFresco. It's possible I didn't phrase my original question perfectly as I was trying to be concise. In a perfect world there would be a budget to hire proper specialists, but for me, right now, I'm an army of one. And a cash poor army of one at that! So at this stage I've gotta do everything myself. It's tough not knowing how to write code- I'm actually quite interested in learning but I don't have the time, and I will never be any good compared to you guys. I'm building a prototype/demo so I can convey my idea properly in order to get funded, I anticipate doing most of the design myself at this early stage, and I'm assuming it will all have to be redone later for the reasons you already mentioned. Thanks so much for your input, I agree with you completely.

I think the Tufte books are deep enough background that they might be useful to execs. Philosophy rather than UI specifics.

http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/