Designing Interfaces Patterns for Effective Interaction Design 3rd Edition
100 reviews 15 followers
Designing Interfaces is one of the few books every designer should have and read, note: get the print version, this book will not translate well to ebook. It does a great job laying out the common patterns of software design and establishing a common nomenclature for referring to each one. Given its scope, Tidwell only superficially tackles each topic-- however she provides the foundational elements of each one (going over Gestalt principles for example) to ensure even those unfamiliar to interaction design are up to speed. While I rate this five stars for effectively reaching its goals; I am disappointed that Tidwell did not pair with a researcher to cite usability and user research studies that speak to how each interaction performs in the wild. Additionally the social interfaces' focus on creating social content vs. creating social interfaces was oddly placed within the context of this book. I can imagine Designing Interfaces becoming my 'get unstuck' tool in my toolkit; sadly since it does not cover the peer-reviewed cons of many of the patterns, it doesn't serve as a "designers desk reference". But at over 500 pages, I get that some things were simply out of scope.
42 reviews 5 followers
Another gorgeous design book. But not quite what I was expected. The book is basically an encyclopedia of UI design patterns, or maybe "mini patterns". Broken into categories like form design, editor design, etc. Covering areas like individual, concrete patterns like tabbed containers, referred to as "card stack" to general, abstract notions like "diagonal balance". Each pattern is cross-linked with related patterns. I assume an online version of this book would work quite well, particularly if the graphic layout there is as good as it is the the book (I'd have to guess it's not). So, sadly, not a whole lot of new information for me, but it was certainly interesting to page through here. I also suspect the next time I actually do some UI design (been awhile), I may pull this out and read the sections on UI bits that I actually use, to get some additional thoughts. A bunch of the patterns are actually available on the web, here: http://designinginterfaces.com/
1 review
The domain of the book is very well defined by its title. Its primary focus is to educating the readers about Interaction Patterns, its use and context of usage. The book encompasses certain aspects of Interfaces but leaves the readers craving for more patterns. So after reading this book you might want to look into Yahoo! pattern library.
All in all, a nice read for someone who has a decent knowledge of Interface designing and interface usability. Will not recommend this book to someone looking for an introduction to this field. Should try Steve Krug or Donald Norman books first. A must for someone looking to excel in Interaction design field.
Author 1 book 74 followers
Nice book with explanations and examples of most of the common user interface elements and idioms. An excellent reference with thoughtful and in most cases very recent examples illustrating the patterns. As with any design book this is not complete but covers most of the bases extensively and a lot in it has been motivated thoroughly but remains discutable. Let neither of those put you off.
432 reviews
This is a book for designers to think about "common sense" that might not be as commonly distributed as the name would suggest. For me it was just a fun little dip into an area where I don't go swimming, almost never. On the other hand, after parsing through the patterns, it makes you appreciate correct usage a tiny bit more, I feel. First edition of this book was written 2005 and the second one after the smartphone revolution 2011, but main parts are so called "common sense" in any situation. But if possible, then you should probably take a look at 2020 third edition. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/... Now some examples of patterns discussed. The first 14 are more like essays of how to think about your users and how to be more helpful. Safe Exploration - "let me explore without getting lost or getting into trouble" Instant Gratification - people want to get the success experience quickly. Let them do simple things simply. Satisficing - "good enough", satisfying and sufficing. Help with tutorial pointers to get started like "type here", "drag image", "now save". Make labels short, plainly worded, quick to read. Changes Midstream - "I changed my mind about what I was doing." Or I was interrupted and shut my laptop, but I want to continue afterwards from the same place. Deferred Choices - "I don't want to answer that now; just let me finish!" Like a long registration form if you just wanted to post a little link or buy this one thing in the e-shop. Incremental Construction - user does a little change, saves/compiles/builds and does a bit of a change again. Flow would be interrupted by a long lag or wait. Habituation - "The gesture works everywhere else; why doesn't it work here, too?" Or why does it work different? Like Ctrl-A Ctrl-X Ctrl-S in Emacs sends the cursor to the beginning of the line and save the file, but in Word it selects all, cuts it and then saves the document. Microbreaks - "I'm waiting for the train; let me do something useful for two minutes". If the user needs to "triage" items, make it efficient to star, save, select. Long load times are a sure way for the user to give up on your app. This pattern is mostly for the smartphone. Spatial Memory - "I swear that button was here a minute ago." People remember more easily where the documents are, not what they're named. Or if you have lots of OK/Cancel dialogs, then let them be in a similar place with similar labels doing the same thing. Prospective Memory - Email client let's you name folders, code editor let's you type whatever without restrictions. Write yourself a calender memo or TODO. Also next time document is opened, continue from the spot you left. Or if the user leaves unfinished tasks open, or browser tabs - deal with it. Steamlined Repetition - "I have to repeat this how many times?" Have a "replace all" or a possibility to set a default answer to a repetitive question. Or support scripting (make a shell script to do that). Keyboard Only - "please don't make me use the mouse" Other People's Advice - Stack Overflow, Reddit, user comments / reviews in Amazon about the product, IMDB about the movie, BGG about the game, etc. Personal Recommendation - like the last pattern, but support direct sharing, permalinks. Usually you cannot just show a single thing, but a list. This is what most of the world's digital artifacts seem to do. Lists present rich challanges - how long is the list? Is it flat or hierarchical? What kind of an hierarchy? How is it ordered, and can the user change that? Shoult it be filtered or searched? What operations associate with each item? Feature, Search, and Browse - a common pattern for search engines, shops, but also just a blog or a news site. News Stream pattern - blogs, news list the newest item on top and descend through time. Dashboard - information dense overview. Wizard - step by step tutorial pattern Picture Manager - timeline, maybe grouped by day, hour. Might use "Thumbnail Grid" and/or "Pagination" pattern. Maybe a "Two-Panel Selector" for moving pictures into different sets. Provide Tools to Create a Thing - "Canvas Plus Palette" for visual editors, "Many Workspaces" to work with many documents in parallel or web pages in tabs, "Alternative Views" to view the object through different "lenses". The rest of the chapter is A little side note - it's fun to see the 2011 screenshots from the internet of the day. Discontinued product like Google Reader. Or just fun old designs of Google, Firefox, Amazon, etc. Also seems Google Buzz was big at a time of writing the 2nd ed. And Del.icio.us - damn it, it was very useful!
3 goes into navigation.
4 is about layout of page elements.
5 on how to display lists.
6 is devoted to the "verbs" in the interface, the actions and commands.
7 shows complex data.
8 wants to get the user input in forms and controls.
9 is an addition to the 2nd ed - using Social Media, which went mainstream around 2009 with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube.
10 on Going Mobile, also an addition to the 2nd ed, because 2007 iPhone happened. Today you would probably read Android Material Design.
11 on Visual Design.
95 reviews 62 followers
I can only assume that one of the reasons some people don't believe in the value of UX design is the existence of books like this. In over 500 pages it says absolutely nothing.
- design-related
106 reviews 2 followers
Although the book was written back in 2005, it mostly discusses basic principles of UI design that are timeless, avoiding to get in details that are related with the seasonal trends. This approach makes the book modern even after 12 years. The writer managed to present and analyse most aspects that someone needs to consider in order to create a user-friendly UI, while most of the analysed principles can be also applied for web-design or even poster-design. It is easy-to-read and written in a simple language without too much terminology that could make it unfriendly for less technical readers. I also liked the fact that it presents example screenshots of UIs, which -although they can now be considered quite old-fashioned- they help make the presented points more easily comprehensible. Of course, the fact that it was written 12 years ago is something that the reader needs to keep in mind while reading it, and - in my opinion - needs to be combined with more recent sources in order to give a complete picture of UIs' needs nowadays.
- scientific-technical
This book was super useful when I was working on my project. When I did not have much ideas how to start with creating a certain element I could always find ideas. What I really like about this book is also how much material you can find. Today we have websites such as Material Design and many others who share the component specifications with the rest of the world. So even though I think it's a good book, it's not as practical as a direct website and some of it's cases are pretty old - but it covers a lot more cases than some websites with those specs.
It is also made more for designing websites, and just a small amount of the book (few pages in the end) are reserved for designing interfaces on mobile. Nevertheless I'm pretty sure I will use this book throughout this and other projects.
187 reviews 21 followers
(Review for 2020 edition) Very nice encyclopedia/showcase of common design patterns. Each pattern is explained - what it does, what are users' expectations, what are its states and capabilities, and where you should use it. It is, perhaps, not what many readers are looking for, but I find this kind of book useful for: It's a nice book to have in print version, so that one can flip through it during downtime and hopefully learn something new, or see something in a new light.
- teaching interface designers about states (empty, selected, error etc)
- giving developers a glimpse of the meaning behind the interface and human factors in web dev, not just dry code
- making people think about the web product as a whole, not just a haphazard pile of mockups and merge requests
- enforcing common language between the teams - so that people won't say "dropdown menu" and mean "html select"
- tech
250 reviews 7 followers
I was given this as a supplemental resource for a new job, particularly for Chapter 7, and think it's an excellent guide. It doesn't go very in depth, but she lists pros and cons of different design decisions that helps, IMO, when making UI decisions. I think this is a great reference for anyone in a HCD field, especially those who are new to UI design. I don't think it's the best resource for people who have been working in the field for a while though, and much better for novices like myself. Excellent resource for anyone starting in the field. (Do yourself a favor and get the hard copy, not the e-book. Personal preference perhaps, but that's my 2 cents)
- 2018
5,711 reviews 25 followers
Designing interfaces can be very difficult. The proof is the majority of applications that are hard or unpleasant to work with. Yet the author has no idea what designing interfaces takes. Tidwell only wings it by making up reasons why the Apple interface is great. Well the Apple interface is great and sales would prove it. And? Reading this book you would be able to do a Mac application interface. Something you would be able to do by simply using a Mac and paying attention to the details, instead of wasting time and money on some improvisation skills.
- junk
75 reviews
Although written in 2011, this is still a valuable resource for talking about and designing applications of all types (desktop, web, mobile). Trends come & go (as evidenced by the numerous examples) but the building blocks remain the same. A great reference! My only quibble is with the book design. There are so many examples (a good thing) it's hard to pick the major heading out sometimes (a bad thing). If there was more whitespace and maybe a more striking section level style for each pattern it would be infinitely more readable and usable.
A nice overview of UI patterns (typical ways interface is out together, controls you would use etc) with some coverage of usability and interactions. Definitely worth giving an user / client so they know what's possible / feasible whilst working on a new app / website. Since 2nd edition Google Material design and iOS 'Human Interface Guidelines' moved the domain a bit. Time for a reviewed 3rd edition?
19 reviews
A good overview of common UI elements and their best use cases. If you have been an interaction designer for long, most of it is likely to be familiar if not obvious, but the clear explanations still make this a valuable read. If you are new to interaction design, Designing Interfaces will get you to start thinking about the relationship of form to function and put you on the right path for further development.
- ux-ui
13 reviews 9 followers
This book highlights classic design patterns in desktop user interfaces and is helpful broken down into specific topic areas. It's a good resource but one that I feel should be updated to reflect changes that have happened to interfaces since it was originally written. I was torn between giving it 3 or 4 stars as some of the illustrations and examples are a bit dated, but I ended up giving it 4 because the explanations were very clear and helpful as a resource.
- read-in-2020 ux-resources
106 reviews 9 followers
This book contains many mini UI patterns, from UX point of view. Each with its own what, why, when, how and examples from well-known Desktop Application, Website, Mobile... This serves as a good reference book, not as a thorough guide for Designing Interfaces
- computer-science
7 reviews 1 follower
Very good book with basic knowledge about designing interfaces. Must read if one is interested in ui/ux design. One big minus – unfortunately it's a bit outdated. It definitely should be updated with new design patterns.
248 reviews 29 followers
Not my favorite textbook but not the worst, either. Lots of UX design patterns with clear examples (that will surely be outdated in two years). I also did not like the use of the term "differently abled".
- hcim-textbooks
A lot of great stuff in here on Information Architecture but the examples are very old. The book needs an update to be really worth the read at this point. F //
4 reviews
Goog, though should be updated. Some examples are outdated.
335 reviews 8 followers
Great reference even though the examples were dated and the writing was a little dense.
- 3-star-ratings adult
16 reviews
A bit dated now, but the subject matter still holds up. This introduced the concept of pattern design & design impact to me.
21 reviews 2 followers
A good reference for beginners. Gestalt's principles summary (chapter 4) was the best part.
I paid for this becuase it was more focused on design language/UX and patterns. I thought it would be more timeless than something that focused on transient code and applications that are short lived. I think it did the job, though it was very dry and unfortunately I was wrong and even UX and design patterns move on at a faster rate than I expected. Still, it was an intelligent read and well put together.
Intelligent and Invaluable Jenifer Tidwell's pattern based approach is amazingly good! She carefully organizes and enumerates a wide variety of effective user interface options for both small screen (ie: Blackberry, cell phones) and larger screen forms. I am not an expert in UI design by any means (I have read Donald Norman, Tagnazzini, Shneiderman and Mayhew but I have no background in graphic design), but I do project reviews and this book has given me some insight into problems and potential fixes in a few areas. I was also able to pick up on a couple of "hidden" features in some of the software tools that I do use and to label and critique several "features" that weren't working well. The style is easy to read. Tidwell explains, illustrates and covers the merits of each user interface. The research is solid. For example she notes that the Fisheye menu, while slightly favored by programmers and experienced users is considered confusing by and less effective for casual users and recommends a hierarchical approach. I recommend this book for corporate libraries and as a reference for individuals and groups working on what might become overly complicated design Updated Note, Dec 2016 GUIs have become more complex and small screens have become larger and more capable. Browsing through the book again I see where some of the ideas have become dated, but some are still relevant. Though I've referred back to Tidwell less and less over the years, it may be simply because I learned so much from her ideas.
- design
Read
October 1, 2011Has helpful tips. A few technical quibbles. Sometimes examples were given of an interactive process with only one screenshot, making it a bit of work to try to figure out what the rest of the interaction looked like. I occassionly had a hard time flipping through looking for a particular pattern. [return][return]Really though a good book as far as interface design goes. Certainly one of the better O'Reilly books I've read in a while. [return][return](Lots of good examples for folks to build off of and good references. One of those books I'm tempted to actually purchase for myself instead of just borrowing it from the library ;) ).
139 reviews 36 followers
One of the best books for any User Interface Design student/pro/enthusiast. Really well-organized, with easy-to-understand explanations and tons of examples. I had to read this book for my Interface Design class -- normally I sell off my textbooks after the course is done. This one isn't leaving me.
- books-i-own
107 reviews 2 followers
One of the best books on designing interfaces...I find myself returning to it periodically for refresher sessions. It leads one down a path on not only 'what' the user is wanting to accomplish but also 'why' and 'how'. Every software developer would be better off reading and thinking about this book.
- computers
18 reviews 3 followers
As many other people have mentioned, this book is a great list of Design Patterns. Unfortunately that makes it harder to read than something with a narrative. Now that I'm done reading it, I can easily see myself referring back to this book when I have a problem, or want some inspiration or new ideas.
84 reviews 3 followers
Although it was odd that there was a duck on the cover, everything inside this book was worth reading. I really liked Tidwell's writing and think she's organized, succinct, reflective, and anyone who reads her book will become a better interface designer. This would be a great textbook for any media-design course.
- dr-min-liu
Designing Interfaces Patterns for Effective Interaction Design 3rd Edition
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/344724