Customer Reviews

Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design

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I very much enjoyed Software for Use. When I got the book, I read it from cover to cover. Now, six months later, I still turn to it regularly as I develop use cases for our application - especially when I'm working on the user interface for each use case.

You might expect that anything from Larry Constantine would be terrific and again he - this time with equally adept co-author Lucy Lockwood - hasn't let us down. SfU (as it seems to be called in the chat groups) addresses one of the most under-addressed issues in our industry: Why is so much potentially useful software in fact useless because of its appalling user interfaces?

There are lots of valuable topics in this book. But probably the most valuable thing that I got from the book was a methodical approach to developing user interfaces, through the user role maps, task models, essential use cases, use case narrative, tools and materials and ... well, perhaps you should read the book!

If you're in the mood for some edutainment (i.e. cheap laughs while learning something handy), read the section on Web wisdom. There you'll find some wonderfully silly interface designs to avoid on your next e-commerce project.

Bottom line: I'll bet this book's on the way to becoming a classic. It's a "must read" for every software developer involved in any way with software that's meant to be used. And if you're actually charged with developing user interfaces, I'd say it's a "must own".

I've been an object-oriented bigot since the late eighties when I first stumbled on Betrand Meyer's "Old Testament" entitled: "Object Oriented Software Construction". Since then I have been on a continual methodology quest, picking and choosing what works from each methodology. When I finally came accross Larry's book it felt like coming home. He has doen an amazing job of amalgamating all the things that in my experience work. How many times have I argued with engineers about user interface design! How many times have they told me that they know better, and oh by the way, look at this cool feature we added (hit shift F6 and it does this...) This is the best book I have found so far when it comes to usage-centered design. I was lucky enough to be at the start of a new project and bought a copy of the book for every team member! This book has become our baseline and the quality of our software will reflect it. If you wan't to build better user interfaces you should buy this book!

Software for Use by Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood is the top software book I have read in the last three years. It is a book that is as new as tomorrow, but it builds on decades of research and experience in user-interface design. Most people develop user interfaces by intuition, trying an approach and modifying it until no strong objections are breaking through. Some people call this approach "hacking". Software for Use describes a systematic approach to the design of user interfaces. It starts from the user, identifying the different user roles. For each user all use cases are identified and described. Initially the abstraction level is high, focusing on the essential use cases. Eventually the approach achieves a physical user interface . All the work to get there takes place very naturally. The authors make this work very concrete.

Knowing that in many application areas, such as web-design or consumer electronics, the effort in designing the user interface is more than 50% of the work in developing applications, this is a book that I highly recommend every software developer and their managers to read. The Software for Use book is already a classic.

After reading a couple of good reviews and being familiar with Constantine's writing I was sure this book would be great. However, the authors seem to have fallen in love with their own writing. The text is very well written, even elegant, but it could easily have been written in half the pages. One of the central themes of the book is deriving "Essential Use Cases" or in other words Use Cases with just the essential elements. Unfortunately the authors have not taken their own advice and instead created a book with so much verbiage that it reads like a doctoral dissertation. The end result is that the useful information is lost in sea of excess text. If you are a in the trenches software engineer/programmer then you will find this book more effort then it is worth. However, if you have the title of Usability Engineer in a large company then you will probably fine this book delightful.

For anyone in the business of delivering usable software, the book 'Software for Use' by Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood is a must addition to their personal library. This book is wonderfully written in a very readable format (as would be expected from usability experts).

'Software for Use' embraces the key principles of usability in a very pragmatic way. The book is also 'in tune' with trends in the field of usability: moving to a more collaborative team model; addressing usability as a proactive design process rather than a reactive QA function; rethinking technology, tools, & techniques for the purpose of delivering user-centric software products - these are all fundamental aspects of how usability is maturing as a discipline.

One of things I enjoyed most about the book, was its hidden gems of wisdom embedded in each chapter. For example, in discussing the issues of marketability versus usability, the authors offer this simple maxim: "Design for use; refine for sale.... It is almost always far easier to make a functional but unaesthetic system attractive, than to take an attractive but impractical system and make it work."

If I had any criticisms about this book, there would be only one. As with many of today's practical guides, I find there is a recurring challenge with terminology. It is sometimes difficult to identify terms that are 'standard' versus those being introduced by the authors as new. As practitioners we rely heavily on the clarity of words to communicate tasks and deliverables. When applied terms are unfamiliar in context and origin, or they suggest double meaning, we introduce cost and confusion to the process of communication. This is not so much a criticism of the book as it is an observation of humankind, and our struggle to expand the English language.

As the authors themselves note, 'usability is not rocket science,' but it takes time and effort to achieve. Usability needs to be experienced before it can be standardized within an organization. That is why 'Software for Use' is such a good book - it is an experiential guide.

Perseverence is required, as the text is a little dry and verbose. However, there are too many leading edge ideas to score it other than full marks. Advances the state-of-the-art in systems engineering by promoting thorough requirements engineering using interaction neutral Essential Use Cases and then good quality Interaction Design as an integrated part of the lifecycle

Stating that software is to be written for humans to use is a phrase that should provoke a sarcastic reaction questioning the intelligence of the one uttering it. If that were always the case, then there probably would be a comic strip similar to the immensely popular Dilbert devoted to this topic. Unfortunately, time pressures, complexity, ignorance, and low user expectations combine to make it all too common that the phrase "user friendly" might as well be a mantra in whale song. Some projects are developed without any input from those considered the target costumer base and in others, the input is solicited only to be ignored or belittled. The authors of this book argue for the insertion of what they call "usage-centered design" into the intense, often chaotic process of building software.
Chapter 11, "Help Me If You Can: Designing Help and Helpful Messages," made the greatest impression. Throughout the history of software development, the creation of genuinely helpful documentation has been an art woefully MIA (muddled, incomprehensible, and abstruse). Even the most intuitive of interfaces with occasionally leave you baffled, or you will click on the wrong item or press an inappropriate key. The development of essential use cases for help distills the topic down into eight statement prefixes that any parent of a young child faces several times a day. Some of the best advice for creators of online help comes from the basic principles of newspaper journalism. Get to the point. Tell the whole story in the headline. Tell the whole story in the first paragraph. Or the even blunter advice, "Make your help help."
The most significant advance in the design of user interfaces has been the creation of the icon. A section called "' eye-con' design" brings things right to the point--it is the eye that matters. With so little area available, the creation of quality icons is a real art form. However, it is something that can be learned. This is a section that should be required reading before you open the drawing program.
No book that promotes the user can be complete without extensive treatment of the World Wide Web. While there is no doubt that the Web has changed the world, as is properly pointed out, programming for the Web does not differ all that much from "traditional" programming. The authors' approach is summarized in the caption, " The chaos and complexity of the Web places a premium on such old-fashioned virtues as making it clear to users where they are and how they got there." I would add the additional line, " and clearly showing them what they should do." This philosophy is backed up by experience, where users will generally not wait longer than the number of seconds they can count on their fingers. Users also avoid sites that are difficult to navigate or as unclear as if they were in monochrome.
If there is a weakness in this book, it is the lack of clear examples. As the author highlights in several places, many people function well in their jobs without thinking a great deal about it. However, if they are asked to codify what they do and how they do it, problems arise. Only clear examples can demonstrates the true path to understanding. This is especially telling in the section on web design. While there is a diagram illustrating a poorly designed online form, there is no example of a good one. A link to a site demonstrating a well-designed form would be an enormous improvement. There is a Website listed on the back cover, but it is the site of the company where the authors work and any material directly related to this book is not readily apparent.
There is so much valuable material in this book that is the only possible to highlight a few of the most striking items. If and when I ever go back into the chaotic world of software development, purchasing copies for each member of the team will be written into the budget, along with the necessary time to read and discuss it - probably the highest ROI that the project will have.

Published in Journal of Object-Oriented Programming, reprinted with permission

First off, the information in this book is fantastic! I have attended lectures by Larry Constantine and as a professional software designer with 10 years experience myself I find his methods well grounded in the realities of building actual product. That said, this book has a major flaw. I completely agree with a prior review titled, "Why use 1000 words to explain that which could be done in 10?" This book is too wordy and poorly organized. It meanders about intermixing the mechanics of constructing design artifacts with anecdotes that are tangentially related. The book could be half as long and should separate overviews, details and examples. As stated by Constantine & Lockwood, software (or a technical book for that matter) is at it's core a tool. As a designer I want to be able to easily jump from big picture concepts to details to usage examples as needed. This book as currently organized makes that very difficult. So the information is great, but I would very much like to see this book re-edited and released as a thinner, more focused v2.0.

I recommend checking out Constantine & Lockwood web site www.foruse.com for more distilled documents. Unfortunately that site has been "under construction" for quite some time (going on three years I think!!!). The result is it's not very up to date.

I have heard very good things about this book and I already own it for 6 months. Still I haven't been able to read more than the first 100 pages. I generally have no trouble reading books that are written in English but this one is extremely hard to read. The sentences are way to long and a lot of the used words are unknown to foreign people. I also feel that the information could be presented in a better way. I rate 2 stars because I like what I have been able to read.