Customer Reviews

Tog on Interface

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is mostly a collection of Tognazzini's engagingly-written Macintosh software developer newsletter columns. Tog draws from greatly varying sources -- among them information theory, Jungian psychology, and Apple's extensive user testing -- and presents a deep, broad view of interface design as an unending process. The book is as Mac-centric as Alan Cooper's "About Face" is Windows-centric, but like Cooper, Tog isn't beyond criticizing his native OS.

Tog focuses on ways of thinking about human-computer interaction, using particular examples only to illustrate principles -- not outright dictating what an interface should look like. A few of his examples from the Mac OS are a little outdated (some of his columns were written before System 7), but those details are instructive in themselves when you examine their contrast to the current Mac OS in light of his principles, which are rock solid.

Tog and Cooper should be on every interface designer's shelf -- not one or the other, but BOTH.

Diving into "Tog on Interface", a collection of Apple Macintosh developer newsletter column reprints, provides the same guilty pleasure as finding a stack of fifty year old technical magazines. Clearly, there was an audience somewhere, and a dialogue going on, and interesting topics being discussed. But, oh it seems so long ago and what are all those strange mechanical devices they're referring to? On closer study, the second analogy that comes to mind is the Europe-in-7-days package; Tognazzini touches on almost every conceivable topic, if only to drop a reference here or tie in a point there. The comments are usually on target, but left me seeking answers that were deeper and less flippant. This book is riddled with the author's humor and point of view; if you find attempted cuteness or a stream of in-jokes annoying, steer clear.

I bought this book after devouring Tognazzini's well regarded web interface design site, which left me wanting more. I didn't get it in this book, but did find what I was looking for in other books on the topic of interface design: Jeff Johnson's "GUI Bloopers", which is organized like Tog's web site, Alan Cooper's Windows-centric rant "About Face" and Jef Raskin's Mac and Canon Cat dominated "The Humane Interface".

I am a big fan of AskTog, so I bought this book. Some of the information is a bit dated (and relates specifically to the old Macintosh), but much of it is sound design principles expressed informally (and in a readable way).

The presentation of the material is great. Even flipping quickly through the pages should turn up useful nuggets. If you have an interest in design evolution, this is a good read. If you want some good design principles easily explained, this is a good read. Many of his stories are condensed down into bolded, bulleted "rules" of design.

The one thing I didn't like about the book: Tog lives in a sheltered reality. If research shows something he disagrees with, he calls it bad research. If research supports his ideas, it is quickly pointed out as solid evidence. It is very important to read anything by Tog with a critical (but open) mind. Not all of his ideas have stood the test of time.

All things considered, this book is worth reading for developers and designers of any Visual Interface (Tog explains his distaste for the term "Graphical User Interface").

Want to write a brilliant applicatioin? Then think and process information the way your user will think and process, and design your application for them, not you! Easy concept to say and comprehend, but rather hard to actually do. Tog, through examples and descriptions, tells us how people think and process information. The not-so-surprising thing is that most code slingers think in conceptual ways that are not so common. Go figure. Tog really does help you understand how most others will process, and that understanding makes you a better developer.

My company makes these chapters on processing information a required reading for all new developers that join the company. It is that good. The Intuition quiz, the one that tries to help you see how your own brain stores and retrieves information, is an addiction for every new reader. Of course, one of the coded sayings "9 P in the SS" is dated. Today it should be written "8 P in the SS". Tomorrow it may change again.

TOG on Interface is a good overview of the evolution of Human-Computer Interface design from the perspective of Apple products. The book is a collection of articles that Tognazzini wrote for an Apple developer's magazine. While reading, I had that feeling that coworkers at Apple talked Tognazzini into writing a column to try to keep him busy and out of the hallways evangelizing. Fortunately, he committed his thoughts to ink and shared them with the rest of us

You'll get some good laughs, as you follow Tog through the complexities of designing some of the earliest, and still the best, interfaces out there...he was, as I recall, the Interface Czar at Apple when they were creating the Mac, then worked at Sun, and now is part of the Nielsen Norman Group. The book's good background for his site, AskTog.com. You'll get the basics, without the sour looks of some other interface gurus, and you'll get a sense of the way a leading designer interacted with the developers he had to persuade to follow his lead.

It's more on Apple Computer's UI design experience. I don't feel you can apply a lot to the general UI design.