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Books Book Reviews

Book Review: Designing With the Mind In Mind 52

benrothke (2577567) writes "Neurologists and brain scientists are in agreement that in truth, we know very little about how the brain works. With that, in the just released second edition of Designing with the Mind in Mind, a Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines, author Jeff Johnson provides a fascinating introduction on the fundamentals of perceptual and cognitive psychology for effective user interface (UI) design and creation." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.
Designing with the Mind in Mind, a Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines
author Jeff Johnson
pages 240
publisher Morgan Kaufmann
rating 9/10
reviewer Ben Rothke
ISBN 978-0124079144
summary Excellent reference on the integration of user interface design and the mind
Johnson heads up a consulting firm that specialized in evaluating and designing UI and brings significant experience to every chapter. He writes that following user-interface design guidelines is not as straightforward as something like following a cooking recipe; even though people often compare the two. Design rules often describe goals rather than actions, as they are purposefully very general to make them broadly applicable. The downside to that is that it means that their exact meaning and applicability to specific design situations is open to interpretation.

With that, the book provides an exceptional foundation on how to ensure effective usability is successfully implemented. The book spends a long time detailing how users make decisions and choices.

What's really good about the book is that Johnson provides ample details about the topic, but doesn't reduce it to so just a set of rules or mind-numbing (and thusly unreadable) checklists. His synopsis of the topics provides the reader with a broad understanding of the topic and what they need to do in order to ensure effective UI design is executed.

While the focus in the book is heaving on general and cognitive psychology, the book is written for the reader who is a novice in the area, and stays quite practical, without getting in the vague theoretical areas.

The book provides scores of examples of how people relate to an interface, and how to design accordingly. One of many fascinating examples is when the author details the notion of attentional blink. After we see or hear something, either in real-life or on a monitor, for a very brief amount of time following the recognition, between .15 and .45 of a second; we are nearly deaf and blind to other visual stimuli, even though our eyes and ears stay functional. Researchers call this attentional blink and it is thought to be caused by the brain's perceptual and attentional mechanism being briefly fully occupied with processing the first recognition.

What this means for a UI designer is that attentional blink can cause the user to miss information or events if things appear in rapid succession. The book then goes on to describe techniques in which to create an effective UI to deal with the effects of attentional blink. And he does this for scores of other similar issues.

Another fascinating example is around visual hierarchy, which lets people focus on the relevant information. The book notes that one of the most important goals in arranging information presentations is to provide a visual hierarchy, an arrangement that breaks the information into distinct sections, labels each section prominently, and presents the sections and subsections as a hierarchy.

The book details the myriad areas which are crucial for an effective interface. Chapters 4 and 5 provide significant detail about the importance of color for effective visual representation.

As the title suggests, the book takes a deep approach to the neuroscience and psychology in UI design. Other chapters include topics on human vision, sound, task, cognition, memory and more.

As to memory, chapter details issues around the working memory of a user. He gives numerous examples of error boxes and help screens that work and are epic failures, and how to do it right. The classic example he provides is a 4-step Windows XP wireless error message. If the user were to follow the directions, the instructions would close after step 1.

Each chapter provides numerous implications of proper and improper design, and provides the needed recommendations. While the topics may sound dry, Johnson writes in an engaging and often humorous style.

The book clearly and empirically shows how effective UI design makes all the difference on how users interact with an application or web site. The book will certainly be an important reference to software designers, web designers, web application designers and those interested in HCI, and usability.

For the designers that can't understand why their users are frustrated, they can understand why here. For designers that really want to know what is going on in their users minds, one is hard pressed to find a better reference than this.

As the subtitle of the book is Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines, the book is an invaluable resource for those serious about effective UI design.

Reviewed by Ben Rothke.

You can purchase Designing with the Mind in Mind, a Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews (sci-fi included) -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Book Review: Designing With the Mind In Mind

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  • Great Book (Score:4, Interesting)

    by coop247 ( 974899 ) on Monday April 28, 2014 @02:40PM (#46861625)
    I taught about a half of a semester of an HCI course with the 1st version and loved it. The examples are fantastic, the students liked reading it (well, compared to how much students generally like things).
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 28, 2014 @02:59PM (#46861817)

    Every single time I've seen "user interface experts" decide how something should operate, it ends up designed for the LCD, to the exclusion of people who become experts at whatever the software is. You're only a novice for a short time, but you can be an expert for a long time.

    The most productive software I've ever used has not been deisgned by user interface experts.

    Bring back design by experts, for experts, and I'll be happy. Even if it's something I've never used before, I'd rather spend the time to get good at a productive interface, than an easy to use interface. Hell, even if I'll only ever use it once in my life, because in the aggregate, it's a net win when measured across all the tools I will use.

  • Re:Low-contrast UI (Score:4, Interesting)

    by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 ) on Monday April 28, 2014 @06:43PM (#46863833) Journal

    The problem with using color, of course, is that a certain group of people are color blind.

    I'm reminded of an old friend of mine who is red/green color blind. He was trying to troubleshoot a problem with a router which had a light above each plug which would show red if there was a problem or green if it was good. Needless to say, he could tell the light was on but he couldn't tell if it was green or red. He had to grab someone else and have them sit there and say whether connections were red or green.

    Color is good to use, but make sure that you have some sort of redundant information. Don't use a red checkmark for bad and a green checkmark for good, for example, without having some piece of redundant information (e.g., the word "Failed") after it.

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