Content area
Full Text
The Essential Guide to User Interface Design: An Introduction to GUI Design Principles and Techniques. Wilbert O. Galitx. 2002. 2nd ed. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. [ISBN 0-471-08464-6. 760 pages, including index. $55.00 USD (softcover).]
The Essential guide to user interface design is a do-it-yourself software design package in a box. Well, not an actual box, but the book is box-like in its proportions: an inch and-a-half thick and seven inches high by nine inches wide, almost as big as a chocolate box-like the most expensive Godiva chocolate box, in fact. And that's how Galitz's books, especially this one, always make me feel: Any piece I pick out from the book will be tasty and exactly right.
Let me demonstrate what I mean by telling you about the contents. Part 1, "The user interface-An introduction and overview," contains two short chapters on the importance of the user interface and characteristics of graphical and Web user interfaces. Both chapters include some history, which will be useful for Trivial pursuit: The geek edition if it's ever invented.
Pan 2, "The user interface design process," is divided into 14 steps rather than chapters:
* Know your user or client.
* Understand the business function.
* Understand the principles of good screen design.
*...