The Essential Guide to User Interface Design : An Introduction to GUI Design Principles and Techniques

Well-designed graphical user interfaces (GUIs) can increase user productivity. But designing them is often difficult and time-consuming, especially for the novice programmer or system developer. This guide contains the do's and don'ts of computer interface design. It is written for system designers and programmers, especially those who may be designing user interfaces for the first time. The author explains the basic principles of effective interface design and then provides a step-by-step guide that takes the reader through the design process, showing plenty of examples of good and bad interface designs along the way. The book covers principles of human interaction with screens for example, how the eye reacts to colours, cascading windows, overlays and text placements. It describes each screen element and how it can used to create interfaces that work. The author also covers the latest interface trends, including Windows 95.