

Ask HC: Which books on user interface design do you wish your CEO/Cofounders would read? - UandIblog

Do you Hackers have some advice for my nonhacking self? Here is a list of some of the books I've already read, I haven't delved into UI yet.
http://www.shelfari.com/o1517988867/shelf<p>Thanks HackerNewsCommunity, and I hope I didn't break any rules when I put that link to my bookshelf.
======
mixmax
I've done a little bit of consulting on interface design - even managed to
have a site we did mentioned by Jakob Nielsen in a list of ten greatest
redesigns. My take on UI is that it's not about reading books but all about
people. Which is probably why a lot of programmers are terrible at UI (not
meaning to hurt anyone here, just stating my opinion...) Here is how I work:

1) I constantly ask "will my mother understand this". If the answer is no
simplify it. And my mother doesn't know that a page can be resized...

2) It's all about consistency. Links, textboxes, etc. should be the same
across the site.

3) Hallway usability testing. make simple HTML mock-ups and watch a few people
play with them - preferably your moms friends. This will tell you a lot about
where the cranks are.

4) Stick to standards. Don't get all fancy and make your text fields arty and
bleeding edge just because you can: your mom won't understand it.

5) Don't use flash unless you really really need to.

But the most important thing you can do to get better at user interfaces is to
go to the local coffeshop, find a nice girl, chat her up, start talking about
computers and realise how little she actually knows about how things work.
There's a fair chance she might not even know what a browser is. Do this a few
times - the experience is enlightening. Besides you'll get out and have a good
time with some girls that think you're really smart :-)

------
fiaz
Don't Make Me Think

[http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-
Usability/dp/032134...](http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-
Usability/dp/0321344758/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220625482&sr=8-1)

~~~
dshah
Not only is the book great, Steve Krug is an all around nice guy and fun to
listen to. Just heard him speak yesterday at the Business of Software
conference. If you ever get a chance to hear him in person, I'd take it.

~~~
nir
One really cool thing about "Don't make me think" is that it is short and
highly readable. For some reason books of this genre often seem like Russian
novels of the 19th century in thickness. Probably the most usable book about
usability out there.

------
ojbyrne
I think the Tufte books are deep enough background that they might be useful
to execs. Philosophy rather than UI specifics.

<http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/>

~~~
radley
Tufte books are awesome, but overkill for website UI.

~~~
ojbyrne
As I said, deep background. I realize it was a bit off topic.

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mechanical_fish
In my experience? Make sure to read this _one_ , _ancient_ Jakob Nielsen
article:

"Why You Only Need to Test With Five Users"
(<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html>)

The biggest problem I've seen so far isn't necessarily that clients and
programmers have no taste, or no idea what makes a good UI. It's that we spend
so much time bikeshedding, sketching and resketching UI ideas in meetings,
trying to impress each other with our ability to divine what is going on in
the head of an imaginary customer. All the while avoiding the task of
observing any actual customers!

------
ad
If you're short on time:
<http://joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html>

Spolsky's work is light and easy to read. This work is geared towards
"progammers", although that is not mutually exclusive with the word "CEO".
It'll help you avoid more obvious mistakes. Nielson and About Face are more
thorough. I haven't read Don't Make Me Think but I've heard good things (and
lots of comments here, so obviously I should read that one...)

------
ken
"The Inmates are Running the Asylum" is a non-techie book which covers more of
the business-case 'why'.

~~~
jyothi
I second. I read "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" after I read "Don't Make
me Think." These are 2 books I not only reread but recommend every person
involved with development or design around web to read.

------
endlessvoid94
"The Non-Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams.

It was written without the web in mind. It's mostly about typography and
spacing for posters, business cards, flyers, etc. But it translates
suprisingly well to web design.

[http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-
Willia...](http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-
Williams/dp/0321534042/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220627590&sr=8-1)

------
radley
Often, Interaction Design gets lumped in with Interface Design (or simply
overlooked). For this I suggest:

"Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Web Sites" by Andrew Chak (2003)

• Similar to "Don't Make me Think", but focuses more on personal interaction &
choices more than layout.

"Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and
other crisis points" by 37 Signals (2004)

• Error management (not just 404s) is one of the most overlooked UI portions
of a web project and are often left up to the developers to "figure out".

[http://www.amazon.com/Submit-Now-Designing-Persuasive-
VOICES...](http://www.amazon.com/Submit-Now-Designing-Persuasive-
VOICES/dp/0735711704/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220633479&sr=8-1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Defensive-Design-Web-improve-
messages/...](http://www.amazon.com/Defensive-Design-Web-improve-
messages/dp/073571410X/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220633462&sr=8-1)

------
Alex3917
My personal favorite is Magic Ink:

<http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/>

~~~
UandIblog
Looks great, the examples seem so obvious! I bookmarked the Ebook and I'll
read it in it's entirety.

------
gasull
I would go with just these Jackob Nielsen's articles:

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/tabs.html>

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html>

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html>

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/sales_cycle.html>

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/wysiwyg.html>

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html>

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html>

------
pmsaue0
The Phaidon Design Classics, although they are not specifically about web
interface design, are AWESOME. <http://www.phaidon.com/designclassics/> They
are great to look over for inspiration and to see examples of products that
really pushed the envelope of design forward. BTW, if you shelled out for the
box set you would score major brownie points with the CEO ;) as they are very
accessible to people who aren't actually doing the grunt/brain work of design.

More along the lines of computing, Rules of Play: <http://tinyurl.com/554oj5>
is a great read. Probably not what you'd want to give your CEO, though. Very
inspiring and thoughtful writing.

------
runevault
Since Don't Make Me Think already came up, going to add About Face (have 2.0
but heard 3.0 is even better) [http://www.amazon.com/About-Face-Essentials-
Interaction-Desi...](http://www.amazon.com/About-Face-Essentials-Interaction-
Design/dp/0470084111/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220626879&sr=8-1)

and Design of Everyday Things [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-
Donald-Norman/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-
Norman/dp/0465067107/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220626908&sr=1-1)

------
jsmcgd
I did a course at University called _Human Computer Interaction_. Essentially
it was the science of user interfaces. The course book of the same name by
Dix, Finlay, Abowd and Beale (3rd edition) was really good. It contained a lot
of accessible theory and plenty of heuristics too that you can implement
straight away. Highly recommended.

<http://www.hcibook.com/>

[http://www.amazon.com/Human-Computer-Interaction-3rd-Alan-
Di...](http://www.amazon.com/Human-Computer-Interaction-3rd-Alan-
Dix/dp/0130461091)

------
bjclark
Which of the books say that a CEO shouldn't be meddling in User Interface
Design and should worry about running the business instead?

~~~
swombat
None that I'd want to read.

In the earliest stage, if the CEO's not either technical or the product lead,
he's a waste of space. There's nothing to run before you have a business.

The early stage CEO should be a product designer (or programmer), and then
eventually move to the side to bring in someone who really enjoys "running the
business" as a CEO.

~~~
bjclark
Then he's not the CEO. He's the Founder and Product Lead, which still doesn't
mean he should be designing user interfaces.

Now, if the post said "What should a budding user interface designer read?"
then the other answers are all great. But that's not what the post is.

Thinking that a "CEO" needs to be the user interface designer is pretty
obvious start down a VERY VERY bad path, IMO.

~~~
swombat
The founder and product lead is the CEO until the company can afford to get
someone else to be the CEO. You're just splitting hairs...

I believe that it is actually quite important for the product lead to have a
strong sense of design - otherwise, where is he leading the product?

~~~
wheels
That might be true in YC-ish startups, but seems to be the opposite of what
I've observed in the rest of the startup world. The CEO writes figures out
what the market is and how to reach it; where the buttons are is not his
concern.

~~~
swombat
I guess we have differing experiences then :-) My current startup's CEO is
also our founder + product lead.

------
josefresco
The LAST thing you want is your CEO and fellow developers doing is reading a
book on good UI design. Do yourself a favor and consult an expert in the field
(designer) and leave the CEO/developers to do things that they're actually
good at (like promote the company and code)

~~~
UandIblog
Yes, good point JoseFresco. It's possible I didn't phrase my original question
perfectly as I was trying to be concise. In a perfect world there would be a
budget to hire proper specialists, but for me, right now, I'm an army of one.
And a cash poor army of one at that! So at this stage I've gotta do everything
myself. It's tough not knowing how to write code- I'm actually quite
interested in learning but I don't have the time, and I will never be any good
compared to you guys. I'm building a prototype/demo so I can convey my idea
properly in order to get funded, I anticipate doing most of the design myself
at this early stage, and I'm assuming it will all have to be redone later for
the reasons you already mentioned. Thanks so much for your input, I agree with
you completely.

~~~
bjclark
So, if you won't do the code cause you don't know how and you never will, why
do you think you can also do the design?

I've never really understood this. Most of the time this line of thinking
leads to even worse design than your code could ever be.

~~~
UandIblog
"So, if you won't do the code cause you don't know how and you never will, why
do you think you can also do the design?"

I have good taste, thats why.

------
umangjaipuria
The Design Of Everyday Things (mentioned above as well) is one of my favourite
design books.

But will reading books help? What is your intent in suggesting such books to
them?

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sfamiliar
it's specific to certain types of displays, but Information Dashboard Design
is pretty solid. not great for getting customers in, but excellent for
internal reporting and tracking. these things make ceo's happy.
([http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596100167?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596100167?ie=UTF8&tag=httpsomethico-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0596100167))

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3KWA
don't make me click the humane interface all of tufte books but beautiful
evidence which I found disappointing

