Interaction Design Resources

From HIT Lab NZ

Books

Preece, Rogers and Sharp. Interaction Design – beyond human-computer interaction. John Wiley and Sons 2002.

This is an up-to-date textbook on the design of interactive technologies written for students and practitioners, It covers a really wide range of issues and methods focussing on user-centered design approaches. Chapters discuss e.g. human cognition and memory, methods for understanding user needs and use situations, the design process, prototyping methods, and evaluation approaches. By covering novel explorative and creative methods such as experience prototyping and cultural probes the book goes beyond what traditional HCI books offer. It illustrates theory and methods with examples, using many illustrations and text boxes with excerpts from case studies, ethnographic reports, or interviews with designers. This textbook requires some concentration and time, but with the many vivid examples one can read it bit by bit, or focus on a section of current interest.

This is a frequent choice as a textbook to accompany lectures. There is an accompanying website offering additional resources (primarily for lecturers). You might want to buy a used version of this book or wait for the 2006 edition to be printed.

Matt Jones, Gary Marsden. Mobile Interaction Design. John Wiley and Sons 2006

This book covers important issues relating to this rapidly changing technology, focusing on user-centered design and usability for mobile devices. It involves a lot of exercises, case studies and study questions, making it a good study resource. One of the big merits of this book is that it takes a world-wide perspective on mobile technologies, taking into account the diversity of needs and use environments (the second author is from South Africa, the first is a Kiwi).

Karen Holtzblatt, Jessamyn Burns Wendell, and Shelley Wood. Rapid Contextual Design: A How-to Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design. Morgan Kaufmann 2004

Contextual Design is one of the major methodical approaches to doing user-centered design, focusing on the inquiry phase into the use environment. Understanding users needs and the use environment is the first step to ideas that distinguish products from the marketplace and provide users and customers with a positive experience. Rapid CD is a fast-paced, adaptive form of Contextual Design. This book is meant as a hands-on guide for anyone who needs practical guidance on how to use the Contextual Design process and adapt it to tactical projects with tight timelines and resources.

JoAnn Hackos and Janice Redish: User and Task Analysis for Interface Design. Wiley 1998

This is almost a manual for requirements engineering and contextual design. It is still available and has not lost in relevance. A thoroughly readable book in clear and simple language, well illustrated and with a good visual layout that can be started anywhere for quick help, or read cover to cover.

If there is one strong message in this book, it is: Go and talk to the people who will use your product. The authors not only tell you how to conduct a site visit to the end users, they also provide clear instructions (based on experience) on planning a visit, structuring questions, how to make the site visit useful for both the analyzers and the users, and on figuring out what the user said and what it means about the product. Case studies help make the points clear and understandable.

Steve Krug. Don’t Make Me Think. A common sense approach to web usability. New Riders 2000, ca. 35 US$

Usability without Dogma. How can you achieve that your website users know immediately what your site is about, and can achieve their goals (finding information, buying something, putting up an ad...) quickly, without getting lost or frustrated? This is a snappy and humorously written book with many examples and practical advice, focused on web design and usability. On top of that it is short and easy to read, making it a perfect read for web designers, programmers, as well as project managers that are looking for a quick introduction into some of the tricks of the trade. It is straight to the point, drilling down key facts of life about how people use the web (they don’t read, they scan) and rules of thumb for designing (“omit needless words” or ”minimize noise”).

It covers topics from the general design of web pages and how to write for the web („omit needless words“), designing navigation („streetsigns and breadcrumbs“), to “Usability testing on 10 cents a day – keeping testing simple so you can do enough of it“.

Nathan Shedroff: Experience Design. Waite Group Press 2001

A design thinking introduction into experience design, not a how-to manual, not a textbook, rather (quoting from the Amazon description) a visual and textual think-piece that requires you to ponder and reflect about its short texts pieces and vivid imagery. For a wide range of examples, Shedroff invites readers to figure out what the attraction is, what keeps the user engaged, and how the experience gets resolved. Here the pictures are not mere illustrations, they are part of the message, and one needs to reflect on what the images say emotionally – this is what experience is about!

Donald Norman: The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books 2002

This is a classic, reprinted several times, that has been influential in design and in human-computer interaction. This book changes how you look at manmade objects in your environment and gives you tools to think about why exactly some things are hard to use and others are easy. Norman looks at the kinds of errors people make in using artefacts and discusses how designers can plan to prevent these kinds of errors. He walks the reader through some classic and often funny design errors that we all know from everyday life (like doors that don’t show where the handles are or bathroom taps that work counter-intuitive).

Steven Johnson. Interface Culture: How new technology transforms the way we create and communicate. Basic Books 1999

This is a bedtime read, essayistic written, tracing the history of computers and their interfaces, the ideas and people behind these inventions, and how computer interfaces alter our world views. Sometimes it meanders, but overall it is well written and provides a good overview on the history of interface ideas and visions.

Online

Booklists and recommendations online

Favourite Books by the staff of ‘Boxes and Arrows’ (a peer-written online journal about the practice, innovation and discussion of design, including graphic design, interaction design etc.)

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ our_favorite_books_recommendations_from_the_staff_ of_boxes_and_arrows

Encyclopedias’ of terms and glossaries

Open content, peer-reviewed encyclopedia of terms relevant for interaction design

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/

Glossary of terms and fields such as experience design, interaction design, information design, service ecology, user experience,

http://www.nathan.com/ed/glossary/index.html

Usability Glossary

http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/

Blogs and online Magazines

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/

http://www.asktog.com/

http://www.uxmatters.com/

Professional Associations and Initiatives

Interaction Design Association

http://www.ixda.org/en/

AIGA professional association for Desgin.

http://www.aiga.org/

PDMA (Product Development Managers Association)

http://www.pdma.com

UPANZ (Usability Professionals Association New Zealand)

http://www.upa.org.nz

Better by Design (NZ initiative)

http://www.betterbydesign.org.nz

Websites with interesting design examples and guidelines

Scrapbook of illustrated examples of things that are hard to use because they do not follow human factors principles (classic, often cited website!, now with podcast)

http://www.baddesigns.com/

Summary of first principles of Interaction Design

http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html

Collaborative blog on things that don’t work

http://www.thisisbroken.com/

Articles and materials (e.g. for teaching)

The online resources for the textbook “Interaction Design” by Preece, Rogers, and Sharp

http://www.id-book.com

A classic article by Terry Winograd (1997) about “From Computing Machinery to Interaction Design”

http://hci.stanford.edu/%7Ewinograd/acm97.html

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