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Here are Paul's top recommendations from his personal user interface and usability design library. Each book is accompanied with comments provided by the Publisher. For a broader range of recommended books, visit Paul's “ So you'd like to. design a better user interface”
guide on Amazon.com.
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About Face 3.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
Author: Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin
This completely updated volume presents the effective and practical tools you need to design great desktop applications, Web 2.0 sites, and mobile devices. You’ll learn the principles of good product behavior and gain an understanding of Cooper’s Goal-Directed Design method, which involves everything from conducting user research to defining your product using personas and scenarios.
Purchase from :  Amazon.com |  Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Contextual Design
Author: Hugh Beyer, Karen Holtzblatt
This book introduces a customer-centered approach to business by showing how data gathered from people while they work can drive the definition of a product or process while supporting the needs of teams and their organizations. This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflect the way customers want to do their work.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Defensive Design for the Web: How To Improve Error Messages, Help, Forms, And Other Crisis Points
Author: 37signals
Let''s admit it: Things will go wrong online. No matter how carefully you design a site, no matter how much testing you do, customers still encounter problems. So how do you handle these inevitable breakdowns? With defensive design. In this book, the experts at 37signals (whose clients include Microsoft, Qwest, Monster.com, and Clear Channel) will show you how.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Designing from Both Sides of the Screen: How Designers and Engineers Can Collaborate to Build Cooperative Technology
Author: Ellen Isaacs
Written from the perspectives of both a user interface designer and a software engineer, this book demonstrates rather than just describes how to build technology that cooperates with people. It begins with a set of interaction design principles that apply to a broad range of technology, illustrating with examples from the Web, desktop software, cell phones, PDAs, cameras, voice menus, interactive TV, and more. It goes on to show how these principles are applied in practice during the development process -- when the ideal design can conflict with other engineering goals.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
Author: Jennifer Tidwell
Designing a good interface isn''t easy. Users demand software that is well-behaved, good-looking, and easy to use. Your clients or managers demand originality and a short time to market. Your UI technology -- web applications, desktop software, even mobile devices -- may give you the tools you need, but little guidance on how to use them well. UI designers over the years have refined the art of interface design, evolving many best practices and reusable ideas. If you learn these, and understand why the best user interfaces work so well, you too can design engaging and usable interfaces with less guesswork and more confidence.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Designing The Obvious: A Common Sense Approach To Web Application Design
Author: Robert Hoekman
Designing the Obviousbelongs in the toolbox of every person charged with the design and development of Web-based software, from the CEO to the programming team. Designing the Obvious explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only whats necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach To Web Usability
Author: Steve Krug
Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don't be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research
Editor: Sage Publications
This highly acclaimed book in its third edition includes the following updates and improvements: "
- Vignettes" drawn from small and large focus groups that illustrate problems that come up and effective ways to resolve the issues. "
- Designing questions" for asking effective questions to draw out a group and how to refine them based on the groups responses. "
- Collaborative Approach" updated to address the latest ways to implement the empowerment and action research. "
- Budgeting" how to more effectively budget for a focus group "
- Coding" how to more effectively use existing software packages to code and analyze the results of a focus group.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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GUI Bloopers 2.0
Author: Jeff Johnson
A major revision of a classic reference, GUI Bloopers 2.0 looks at user interface design bloopers from commercial software, Web sites, and information appliances, explaining how intelligent, well-intentioned professionals make these dreadful mistakes--and how you can avoid them. While equipping you with all the theory needed to learn from these examples, GUI expert Jeff Johnson also presents the reality of interface design in an entertaining, anecdotal, and instructive way.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests
Author: Jeffrey Rubin
A supremely usable nuts-and-bolts guide for beginners… A daily tool of the trade for specialists… Handbook of Usability Testing gives you practical, step-by-step guidelines in plain English. Written by Jeffrey Rubin, it arms beginners with the full complement of proven testing tools and techniques. From software, GUIs, and technical documentation, to medical instruments, VCRs, and exercise bikes, no matter what your product, you’ll learn to design and administer extremely reliable tests to ensure that people find it easy and desirable to use.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Information Architecture For The World Wide Web: Designing Large-scale Web Sites
Author: Peter Morville
The post-Ajaxian Web 2.0 world of wikis, folksonomies, and mashups makes well-planned information architecture even more essential. How do you present large volumes of information to people who need to find what they''re looking for quickly? This classic primer shows information architects, designers, and web site developers how to build large-scale and maintainable web sites that are appealing and easy to navigate.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Institutionalization of Usability: A Step-by-Step Guide
Author: Eric Schaffer
This book is a guide to making usability a routine practice within an enterprise, be it commercial or government. Every organization has special needs: There is no one simple approach that fits all organizations. What this book provides, however, is a solid methodology, not for usability engineering (that''s been done before and exists in various forms), but for the part that is truly missing--the institutionalization of usability. This institutionalization methodology is not new. It is simply a synthesis of the best practices and insights from hundreds of companies in the forefront of this effort. This book will give you insights into the appropriate institutionalization activities, infrastructure, and staffing. It will give you tips on how to recognize quality, and how to time and sequence components.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Making the Web Work: Designing Effective Web Applications
Author: Bob Baxley
Making the Web Work is one of the first books to discuss in detail the unique challenges and issues involved in designing Web-based applications and services. The book tackles this subject on three levels by describing a structured method for prioritizing and categorizing individual design decisions, by offering a detailed analysis of various design options, and by documenting established Web interface conventions.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics
Author: Thomas Tullis, William Albert
Effectively measuring the usability of any product requires choosing the right metric, applying it, and effectively using the information it reveals. Measuring the User Experience provides the first single source of practical information to enable usability professionals and product developers to do just that. Authors Tullis and Albert organize dozens of metrics into six categories: performance, issues-based, self-reported, web navigation, derived, and behavioral/physiological. They explore each metric, considering best methods for collecting, analyzing, and presenting the data. They provide step-by-step guidance for measuring the usability of any type of product using any type of technology.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Moderating Usability Tests: Principles and Practices for Interacting
Author: Joseph S. Dumas, Beth A. Loring
Moderating Usability Tests is the place for new and experienced moderators to learn about the rules and practices for interacting that have never been described in one place before. Authors Dumas and Loring draw on their combined 40 years of usability testing experience to develop and present the most effective principles and practices - both practical and ethical --for moderating successful usability tests. To help usability professionals, students, and novices understand these principles, the authors provide videos from their lab that demonstrate good and poor interaction as well as commentary from a panel of testing experts on why certain techniques succeed or fail.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces
Author: Carolyn Snyder
Do you spend a lot of time during the design process wondering what users really need? Do you hate those endless meetings where you argue how the interface should work? Have you ever developed something that later had to be completely redesigned? Paper Prototyping can help. Written by a usability engineer with a long and successful paper prototyping history, this book is a practical, how-to guide that will prepare you to create and test paper prototypes of all kinds of user interfaces.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Prioritizing Web Usability
Author: Jakob Nielsen
In 2000, Jakob Nielsen , the world’s leading expert on Web usability, published a book that changed how people think about the Web-Designing Web Usability(New Riders). Many applauded. A few jeered. But everyone listened. The best-selling usability guru is back and has revisited his classic guide, joined forces with Web usability consultant Hoa Loranger , and created an updated companion book that covers the essential changes to the Web and usability today. Prioritizing Web Usabilityis the guide for anyone who wants to take their Web site(s) to next level and make usability a priority!
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Software Requirements, Second Edition
Author: Karl E. Wiegers
The book's commonsense approach provides exemplary project management skills tailored to gathering (and refining, implementing, and eventually tracking) software requirements. While the book often cites recent software engineering studies, the focus always returns to practical management techniques. A case study for a chemical tracking application frames the book, and most chapters begin with anecdotes that demonstrate situations in which users and developers misunderstand each other about a software project's ultimate goals. (If you've ever worked in the field, these stories will probably sound all too familiar.)
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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The Design of Everyday Things
Author: Donald A. Norman
First, businesses discovered quality as a key competitive edge; next came service. Now, Donald A. Norman, former Director of the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of California, reveals how smart design is the new competitive frontier. The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how -- and why -- some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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The Design of Sites: Patterns For Creating Winning Web Sites
Author: Douglas K. Van Duyne, James A. Landay, Jason I. Hong
The Design of Sites, Second Edition, is the definitive reference for the principles, patterns, methodologies, and best practices underlying exceptional Web design. If you are involved in the creation of dynamic Web sites, this book will give you all the necessary tools and techniques to create effortless end-user Web experiences, improve customer satisfaction, and achieve a balanced approach to Web design.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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The Elements of Friendly Software Design
Author:
Paul Heckel
Find out what they don't teach you in engineering school. This entertaining, yet practical guide explains how trained engineers and programmers go astray when it comes to addressing users' needs. And it offer a whole new way of thinking about software design - putting programmers firmly in touch with the people how will use their product.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca
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The Essential Guide to User Interface Design: An Introduction to GUI Design Principles and Techniques
Author: Wilbert O. Galitz
Bringing together the results of more than 300 new design studies, an understanding of people, knowledge of hardware and software capabilities, and the author’s practical experience gained from 45 years of work with display-based systems, this book addresses interface and screen design from the user’s perspective. You will learn how to create an effective design methodology, design and organize screens and Web pages that encourage efficient comprehension and execution, and create screen icons and graphics that make displays easier and more comfortable to use.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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The Non-designer's Web Book
Author: Robin Williams, John Tollett
If you think web design is beyond your reach, or if you want your existing web site to look more professional, this thoroughly updated classic is the place to turn! In these pages, best-selling authors Robin Williams and John Tollett share the creative ideas, useful techniques, and basic design principles that are essential to great Web design-all in the context of the most current technology, software, and standards.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca| Chapters.ca
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The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People In Mind Throughout Product Design
Author: John Pruitt
If you design and develop products for people, this book is for you. The Persona Lifecycle addresses the "how" of creating effective personas and using those personas to design products that people love. It doesn''t just describe the value of personas; it offers detailed techniques and tools related to planning, creating, communicating, and using personas to create great product designs. Moreover, it provides rich examples, samples, and illustrations to imitate and model. Perhaps most importantly, it positions personas not as a panacea, but as a method used to complement other user-centered design (UCD) techniques including scenario-based design, cognitive walkthroughs and user testing.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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The Usability Engineering Lifecycle
Author: Deborah J. Mayhew
A commitment to usability in user interface design and development offers enormous benefits, including greater user productivity, more competitive products, lower support costs, and a more efficient development process. But what does it mean to be committed to usability? Inside, a twenty-year expert answers this question in full, presenting the techniques of Usability Engineering as a series of product lifecycle tasks that result directly in easier-to-learn, easier-to-use software.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide To Creating And Using Personas For The Web
Author: Steve Mulder, Ziv Yaar
How do we ensure that our Web sites actually give users what they need? What are the best ways to understand our users'' goals, behaviors, and attitudes, and then turn that understanding into business results? Personas bring user research to life and make it actionable, ensuring we''re making the right decisions based on the right information. This practical guide explains how to create and use personas to make your site more successful.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Tog on Interface
Author: Bruce Tognazzini
From one of the foremost authorities on the design of user interfaces, this unique collection of ideas and opinions, while focusing on the Macintosh, neatly captures the underlying principles of all graphical user interfaces. Using ideas from such diverse sources as Information Theory, Carl Jung, and even professional beekeeping, the book provides a framework for achieving a deep understanding of user interface design.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Understanding Your Users: a Practical Guide To User Requirements Methods, Tools, And Techniques
Author: Catherine Courage
Today many companies are employing a user-centered design (UCD) process, but for most companies, usability begins and ends with the usability test. Although usability testing is a critical part of an effective user-centered life cycle, it is only one component of the UCD process. This book is focused on the requirements gathering stage, which often receives less attention than usability testing, but is equally as important. Understanding user requirements is critical to the development of a successful product.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions
Author: William Lidwell
Universal Principles of Design is the first cross-disciplinary reference of design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this book pairs clear explanations of the design concepts featured with visual examples of those concepts applied in practice. From the 80/20 rule to chunking, from baby-face bias to Ockham''s razor, and from self-similarity to storytelling, 100 design concepts are defined and illustrated for readers to expand their knowledge.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Usability Engineering
Author: Jakob Nielsen
Written by the author of the best-selling HyperText & HyperMedia, this book is an excellent guide to the methods of usability engineering. The book provides the tools needed to avoid usability surprises and improve product quality. Step-by-step information on which method to use at various stages during the development lifecycle are included, along with detailed information on how to run a usability test and the unique issues relating to international usability.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Usability Engineering: Scenario-based Development of Human-Computer Interaction
Author: Mary Beth Rosson, John M. Carroll
Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction is a radical departure from traditional books that emphasize theory and address experts. This book focuses on the realities of product development, showing how user interaction scenarios can make usability practices an integral part of interactive system development. As you''ll learn, usability engineering is not the application of inflexible rules; it''s a process of analysis, prototyping, and problem solving in which you evaluate tradeoffs, make reasoned decisions, and maximize the overall value of your product.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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User and Task Analysis for Interface Design
Author: JoAnn T. Hackos, Janice C. Redish
User and Task Analysis for Interface Design helps you design a great user interface by focusing on the most important step in the process -the first one. You learn to go out and observe your users at work, whether they are employees of your company or people in customer organizations. You learn to find out what your users really need, not by asking them what they want, but by going through a process of understanding what they are trying to accomplish.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Visual Interface Design for Windows: Effective User Interfaces for Windows 95
Author: Virginia Howlett
Formerly the Director of Visual Interface Design at Microsoft, Howlett headed the team that designed Windows 3.1, 95 and NT. In this definitive resource she presents the graphic design principles and hands-on software development techniques essential to create visually functional and attractive Windows applications. Features a stunning four-color design with hundreds of illustrations.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works
Author: Kelly Goto, Emily Cotler
If anything, this volume''s premise-- that the business of Web design is one of constant change -has only proven truer over time. So much so, in fact, that the 12-month design cycles cited in the last edition have shrunk to 6 or even 3 months today. Which is why, more than ever, you need a smart, practical guide that demonstrates how to plan, budget, organize, and manage your Web redesign - or even you initial design - projects from conceptualization to launch.
Purchase from: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca
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