Soren Lauesen
USER INTERFACE DESIGN: A Software Engineering Perspective,
Hardcover, pp. 604
Addison Wesley, Pearson Education Limmited 2005, Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE, England, http://www.pearsoned.co.uk
ISBN 0 321 18143 3

In general about book

The interaction with the computer takes place through the user interface. The user interface is the part of the system that you see, hear or feel. We use computer programs usually by means of the mouse and the keyboard. The computer replies, usually showing something on the screen, or giving instructions and you have to reply. In both cases we talk about human-computer interaction, and we call the system an interactive system.
This book explains how to design and develop a user interface in a systematic and practical way. It tries to bridge the gap between traditional programming perspectives and human-computer interaction approaches. Author uses the virtual window method to define the right screens and transform them into a full user interface. The virtual windows are an early graphical realization of the data representation. Task analysis comes before the virtual windows and dialogue design after.
The designers compose the user interface with their intuition and general understanding of users, and then measure how good the user interface is. If it is not satisfied, they revise their design and measure once again how good it is. It is the designer's responsibility that the system has adequate usability. It can do what is needed and is easy to use. It is the programmers responsibility that the computer actually behaves as the designer prescribed. This book identifies the usability problems of an existing system through a usability tests.
Part of this book is a discussion of some classical techniques in user interface design, including prototypes and iterative design. The book is about design of user interfaces down to detail. Programming the user interface is closely related. The book illustrates most of the design techniques with a system for supporting a hotel reception. Also, it shows how to design different kinds of systems with the same method. Virtual windows approach is illustrated with several complex applications including Web-based knowledge management system, Web system for course evaluation and management, and design of an advance e-mail system. Several chapters of this book present virtual window design approach and how to convert the virtual window into computer screens, and how to add system functions to the screens based on the task descriptions and state diagrams.
This book contains a lot of examples of user interface dialogs, figures and diagrams, which is one of the points of the book. The examples are the actualization of what this book has to say.
Web site with supplementary material for both tutors and students is available. Overheads corresponding to all figures of the book, and solution to most of the exercise, are available for teachers and can be downloaded from www.booksites.net/lausen.
Author chooses to release a free companion to this book a booklet on user interface programming with Microsoft Access. The package includes a handy reference card for Access and Visual basic, plus hotel system application in various stages of completeness. The Access booklet can be downloaded from www.booksites.net/lausen.

Chapter content

This book is organized in three parts with 16 chapters that may be combined in various ways for different kinds of courses:
Part A, Best of the classics (Chapters 1-4), describes some classical usability topics. It starts with defining and measuring usability and how to identify usability problems of an existing system through a usability test (Chapter 1: Usability). Chapter 2 (Prototyping and iterative design), contains information about classical design approach for usability making and using prototypes, testing for usability and making revision in design. Chapter 3 (Data presentation) is about ways to present data on the screen, and psychology behind them. Chapter 4 (Mental models and interface design) describes psychological law of object permanence and explains how users perceive what they see on screen. This chapter also discusses two extreme interface architectures: the database oriented and the step-by-step oriented

Chapters 5-9 in Part B (Systematic interface design) talk about how to design the prototype in a systematic way so that it is close to being right early on. This includes task analysis, designing the virtual windows, defining the system functions and their graphical representation. Chapter 5 (Analysis, visions and domain description) discusses how to model user tasks and data in a way suitable for user interface design. Chapter 6 (Virtual window design) introduces the large-scale structure of the user interface using design of virtual windows (how many screens, which data they show, how they show it, how you make sure that they support user tasks efficiently and how check the results). Chapter 7 (Function design) describes how to convert the virtual windows into computer screens, and how to add system functions to the screens based on the task descriptions and state diagrams. Chapter 8 (Prototypes and defect correction) has a case study of how make a prototype and how this worked in a real project). Chapter 9 is theoretical; it reflects on virtual window approach and compares it with other design approaches.

Chapters 10-16 (Part C) contain supplementary design issues. Examples are design cases for different kinds of systems including Web-based course rating (Chapter 10) and designing an e-mail system (Chapter 11), user documentation and support (Chapter 12), usability testing and heuristic evaluation systems development in general (Chapters 13 and 14), systems development in general (Chapter 15) and data modeling (Chapter 16).

Useful book

This book was written primarily for software designers and developers, and it contains the information you need to design and develop software user interface. Reader of this book can learn about design and why it is important, and how to do it on a real-life scale. A crucial part of the book is how to design user screens in a systematic way, using proposed methodology, so that they are easy to understand and support the user efficiently.
Also, the book is useful for a students and teachers. Structure of the text makes it ideal for computer science and software engineering students, but also for information systems students who know about programming and the technical aspects of design. Text in the book covers IT conversion courses and professional courses for system developers and expert users participating in development.


Leonid Stoimenov
Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš
Aleksandra Medvedeva 14, P.O. Box 73, 18000 Niš
Serbia and Montenegro
e-mail: leni@elfak.ni.ac.yu
Phone: +381 18 529 235
Fax: +381 18 588 399