Recommended references on GUI ergonomy

Question

Hi mates,

I have not very much experience in creating GUIs. Maybe one of the more experienced programmers/GUI-designers has some tips or references for me how to design ergonomic user interfaces. I've heard, Microsoft has a very big book on this issue for designing GUIs in Access (I assume most ergonomic issues can be used in other platforms as well).

This is a general question and not focused on any language. Of course, examples in any language are welcome, but the main issue is the optical component in general ;-)

Is there any good (free) book / ebook on this topic? Which sources can you recommend? Which experiences did you make? What are common problems/mistakes on designing a "good" user interface?

greets, poeschlorn

Answer 1

Best ones that I've used in the past when I'm rusty:

http://www.guitipsandtricks.com/ you have to sign up for free, but it's a pretty good site.

a PDF on design...hopefully this helps you to realize that a good GUI isn't a one-man job ;) http://analytics.ncsu.edu/sesug/1999/083.pdf

Probably the most sarcastic GUI site on the web: http://toastytech.com/guis/uirant.html

Answer 2

See Aero Taskforce for inspiration, you'll find there common bugs in Aero that are present in current Microsoft Windows. Try to avoid them in your application.

Learn from others' mistakes.

Answer 3

Probably a little background reading about usability and user interface design would be excellent to lead you in the right direction and avoid common mistakes.

• Jakob Nielsen's "10 Commandments" (these are the basics you must get right!)
• Steve Krug, "Don't Make Me Think!"

The following recommendations are taken from Keith Andrews' lecture notes on Human Computer Interaction (Graz University of Technology). At least the first two books are the typical recommendations for learning to design effective user interfaces:

• Alan Cooper, "About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design"
• Don Norman, "The Design of Everyday Things"
• Morgan Kaufmann (Ed.), "User Interface Design and Evaluation"
• Shneiderman/Plaisant, "Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction"

Answer 4

The best way I have found to do complex UI is to forget all the Nielsen metrics and so on and just paper prototype it with paper and colouring in pencils (Crayons if you must). It doesn't matter how rough it looks. Just getting the functionality in there is enough.

There is actually a book on the subject with a forward by Jakob Nielsen you can buy off the site.

http://www.paperprototyping.com/what.html

I have paper prototyped a few projects, iterating through many prototypes, eliminating UI issue after UI issue before I even got to the point of writing a single line of code. I've tested paper protoypes on my brother (he can usually figure out most stuff), and if it passes the brother test I go for the father test (Dad is quite good at not being able to figure out some interfaces), and once it passes the Dad test I go for the Grandmother test (where I test out my prototype on my Grandma). If software passes the Grandma test you really know you are onto a good design.

I find I develop so much faster too when I know exactly what I'm building after I've knocked out a paper prototype. I wish companies I've worked for in the past would adopt a similar aproach (I've tried to get them to) but they seem to think it is childish (it's not)

If you need ideas about how to achieve certain things then ui-patterns.com is also chocked full of ideas. ui-patterns are a little like design patterns only for user interfaces.

Hope this helps.

John

P.S.

Excel also makes quite a good prototyping tool (although I've always stuck to paper) http://www.amit-deshpande.com/2007/09/prototyping-using-excel.html I have a spreadsheet with a lot of controls set up already on it. Write me if you want a copy.

Answer 5

Apple has a pretty lengthy guideline for their OS, but a lot of these concepts can be applied elsewhere.

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGIntro/XHIGIntro.html