About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design - Softcover

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Alan Cooper is a pioneering software inventor, programmer, designer, and theorist. He is credited with creating what many regard as the first serious business software for microcomputers, and is widely known as the "Father of Visual Basic." For the last decade, Alan's interaction design consulting firm, Cooper, has helped companies invent powerful, usable, desirable software and improve digital product behavior through the use of Alan's unique methodology - the Goal-Directed process. A cornerstone of this method, the use of personas, has been widely adopted since it was first described in Alan's second book, The Inmates are Running the Asylum. A best-selling author and popular speaker, Alan is a tireless advocate for integrating design into business practice and for humanizing technology.

Robert Reimann has spent the past 15 years pushing the boundaries of digital products as a designer, writer, lecturer, and consultant. He has led dozens of design consulting projects for startups and Fortune 500 clients alike. Upon joining Cooper in 1996, Robert led the development and refinement of many Goal-Directed Design methods described in About Face 2.0. He has lectur ed at major universities and to international industry audiences, and he is a member of the industry advisory board for the Institute of Design at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Dear Reader,

In the eight years since this book was first published, the ideas that seemed do radical at first have become standard models across the industry. Many practicioners have adopted them and seen dramatic improvements in their products.

This book would not have been possible without the commitment of the many organizations over the past decade that hired Cooper, my design consulting company. They demonstrated a great measure of self-confidence to break from the pack.

By the same token, the many brilliant and talented people who have worked at Cooper have pushed the limits of my original thinking far beyond where I started. They have put their professional reputations on the line to prove that there is a higher standard and better ways to achieve it.

In this significantly revised and expanded edition of the book, Robert Reimann and I have rewritten and reorganized every page. Together we have:

• Updated examples to reflect the current state of the art, and included more examples from Cooper design solutions
• Included references to recent technology and industry developments
• Added an entirely new section covering Cooper's Goal-Directed Design methods such as personas, goals, and scenarios in detail
• Added new chapters on visual design, as well as interaction design issues for embedded systems and the Web
• Added a bibliography of design reference sources

Thanks for joining me in the pursuit of better software, happier programmers and designers, more successful businesses, and extremely satisfied users.

Sincerely,
Alan Cooper
Founder & Chairman of the Board
Cooper

"About Face 2.0 is one of the very rare design books that's fun to read, even though it rocks fundamental beliefs and packs the page with useful information. It's a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what the software design process should be (but usually isn't). The perspective is unique: intellectually rigorous enough for academics while remaining focused on helping practitioners. I'd recommend this book to anybody in the business."
– Harley Manning, Research Director, Forrester Research