A sampling of books on software usability
| Larry Constantine | - Beyond Chaos (Addison-Wesley, 2001)
- The Peopleware Papers (Prentice Hall, 2001)
Interesting articles on software engineering including interface design. |
| Alan Cooper | - The Inmates are Running the Asylum (SAMS, 1999)
- About Face 2.0 (with Robert Reimann) (Wiley, 2003)
Amazingly readable and informative discussion on interaction design
with scads of examples. |
| Chris Crawford | - The Art of Interactive Design (No Starch Press, 2003)
Interaction design looking under the hood (response times, etc.) by a game designer. |
| Steve Krug | - Don't Make Me Think (New Riders, 2000)
How people use the web and how to effectively communicate with them.
I think the realistic suggestions for user testing are very valuable. |
| Donald A. Norman | - The Design of Everyday Things (Basic Books, 2002)
Seminal work!
Scientific and readable look at how humans interact with technology. |
| Henry Petroski | - The Pencil (Faber and Faber, 2003)
An interesting look at the history and design of a ubiquitous tool. |
| Jef Raskin | - The Humane Interface (Addison-Wesley, 2000)
A pioneer of computer interfaces (Apple Macintosh) expands upon the
idea that current human/computer interfaces are fatally flawed so
provides alternatives. |
| Joel Spolsky | - User Interface Design for Programmers (Apress, 2001)
Fast and readable (and in FULL colour). |
| Jenifer Tidwell | - Designing Interfaces (O'Reilly, 2006)
A smorgasbord of interface design patterns. Lots of examples and ideas
arranged in an easy to find and read format. Very enjoyable and informative. |
I (Brian Danilko) have found all of these books readable, informative and enjoyable.
Others may disagree, or think other books should be here, so please check for yourself
before buying anything. Some well known book store web sites allow searching in many of these
books before buying.
