About Face: Essentials of Window Interface Design - Softcover

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About the Author Alan Cooper is one of the most respected software designers of our time. He is the winner of the Microsoft Windows Pioneer Award for his work in designing Visual Basic. He is also one of the most outspoken critics of how the software industry goes about building the interface between products and people. His thirteen-year-old software design consulting company, Cooper Interaction Design, is based in Palo Alto, CA.

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About Face The Essentials of User Interface Design Cooper Interaction Design Dear Reader, This book has a simple premise: if achieving the user's goals is the basis of our user interface design, then the user will be satisfied and happy. If the user is happy, he will gladly pay us money, and then we will be successful. To those who are intrigued by the technology ? which includes most of us programmer types ? we share a strong tendency to think in terms of functions and features. This is only natural, since this is how we build software: function by function. The problem is that this isn't how users want to use software. Developers are frequently frustrated by this, because it requires us to think in an unfamiliar way. But after the initial strangeness wears off, goal-directed design is a boon ? it is a powerful tool for answering the most important questions that crop up during the design phase:

• What should be the form of the program?
• How will the user interact with the program?
• How can the program's functions be most effectively organized?
• How will the program introduce itself to first-time users?
• How can the program put an understandable and controllable face on technology?
• How can the program deal with problems?
• How will the program help infrequent users become more expert?
• How can the program provide sufficient depth for expert users?