Designing Web Interfaces by O'Reilly

  Oct 30, 2010     15398 Views      Web , Books       Comments (0)   

Last week I finished reading Designing Web Interfaces co-authored by Bill Scott and Theresa Neil and published by O'Reilly. The book is not about the visual design or information architecture but it talks about the standards for interaction design, patterns and principles for creating Web sites.

The book is divided into six chapters and each chapter describes a design principle with a step by step walkthrough of the various principles in the Interaction design. Designing Web Interfaces is a handy 293 pages guide for anyone who works on developing designs or creating web interfaces. Here is an excerpt from the book.

This book is about interaction design: specifically, interaction design on the Web. And even more specifically, about rich interaction design on the Web.

Principle 1: Make It Direct
This chapter talks about the in-page editing, drag and drop and on applying actions to directly selected objects in a page. It's all about making everything on a page is clear like what can and can't be modified or edited on a page.

Principle 2: Keep it Lightweight
This chapter talks about the best practices for to keep each and every action on a page in a simple way and to provide sufficient feedback. It also covers on using the contextual tools and secondary menus and their impact on user interactions.

Principle 3: Stay on the Page
Its focuses on where to use the interaction techniques like overlays, inlays, virtual pages and process flow. On using overlays or refreshing a part of a page techniques can be used to avoid opening of new page for secondary information.

Principle 4: Provide an Invitation
This chapter concentrates on teaching us the principles of how to help visitors to discover the various possibilities on a site by providing invitations or giving them a live tour of your site features. It covers the usage of static invitations and dynamic invitations on the web.

Principle 5: Use Transitions
This chapter teaches us about the usage of animation, rich effects to enhance user interaction and to get a correct attention on a site. It covers about the transition patterns and purpose of the transition.

Principle 6: React Immediately
This chapter talks about the live response and techniques like getting suggestion while we are typing and techniques like auto completion. It mainly discuss about the use of lookup pattern and feedback pattern on web sites.

Designing Web Interface is a very detailed book which describes various patterns and principles on interaction design. It also talks about the advantage and disadvantages of using different pattern on Interaction design. Designing Web Interface is must have book for everyone who are involved in developing and designing web sites.