Looking for insight on designing Windows user interfaces? Need help improving the visual impact of your Windows 95 application? This definitive resource presents both the graphics design principles and hands-on software development techniques users need to create visually functional and attractive Windows applications. Features an attractive color design with hundreds of illustrations.

Most programmers' fear of user interface (UI) programming comes from their fear of doing UI design. They think that UI design is like graphic design—the mysterious process by which creative, latte-drinking, all-black-wearing people produce cool-looking, artistic pieces. Most programmers see themselves as analytic, logical thinkers instead—strong at reasoning, weak on artistic judgment, and incapable of doing UI design. In this brilliantly readable book, author Joel Spolsky proposes simple, logical rules that can be applied without any artistic talent to improve any user interface, from traditional GUI applications to websites to consumer electronics. Spolsky's primary axiom, the importance of bringing the program model in line with the user model, is both rational and simple. In a fun and entertaining way, Spolky makes user interface design easy for programmers to grasp. After reading User Interface Design for Programmers, you'll know how to design interfaces with the user in mind. You'll learn the important principles that underlie all good UI design, and you'll learn how to perform usability testing that works.

Provides straightforward and effective methods you can apply right now to create more usable- user-driven-software. Softcover. CD-ROM included. DLC: User interfaces (Computer systems)

Bringing together the results of more than 300 new design studies, an understanding of people, knowledge of hardware and software capabilities, and the author’s practical experience gained from 45 years of work with display-based systems, this book addresses interface and screen design from the user’s perspective. You will learn how to create an effective design methodology, design and organize screens and Web pages that encourage efficient comprehension and execution, and create screen icons and graphics that make displays easier and more comfortable to use.

This well-organized and clearly written book provides guidelines for designing visually and functionally consistent user interfaces for Windows programs. It is the official book on Microsoft user-interface design and can be read as a program specification for Windows application developers who want to save training time, boost productivity, and promote user confidence in their applications.

It also includes information about supporting international users and users with disabilities."--BOOK JACKET.

". . . a book that should be forced on every developer working today. If only half the rules in this book were followed, the quality of most programs would increase tenfold." -Kevin Bachus, praising Theo Mandel's The GUI-OOUI War A total guide to mastering the art and science of user interface design For most computer users, the user interface is the software, and in today's ultracompetitive software markets, developers can't afford to provide users and clients with anything less than optimal software ease, usability, and appeal. The Elements of User Interface Design is written by a cognitive psychologist and interface design specialist with more than a decade's research and design experience. Writing for novices and veteran developers and designers alike, Dr. Mandel takes you from command-line interfaces and graphical-user interfaces (GUIs) to object-oriented user interfaces (OOUIs) and cutting-edge interface technologies and techniques. Throughout, coverage is liberally supplemented with screen shots, real-life case studies, and vignettes that bring interface design principles to life. Destined to become the bible for a new generation of designers and developers, The Elements of User Interface Design Arms you with a "tested-in-the-trenches," four-phase, iterative design process * Analyzes well-known interfaces, including Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2 Warp, Microsoft Bob, Visual Basic, Macintosh, and the World Wide Web * Schools you in object-oriented interface (OOUI) design principles and techniques * Offers practical coverage of interface agents, wizards, voice interaction, social user interfaces, Web design, and other new and emerging technologies