Customer Reviews

The Usability Engineering Lifecycle: A Practitioner's Handbook for User Interface Design (Interactive Technologies)

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

 

 

This book gives concrete data on the "how-to" of usability engineering and realistic data regarding the *selling process* of these concepts to management. Additionally, it can function as a "how-to" handbook with its many examples. To name a few, the examples include: pre-evaluation, evaluation and post-evaluation questionnaries, data collection sheets and data analysis and report sheets.

The book has a fantastic index for quick reference and is organized well.

Perhaps the first attempt to put a professional, repeatable engineering process onto UI Design for improved usability of systems and products. It is unique because it tries for the first time to integrate UI Design with established software development methodologies. This is comprehensive, very readable, and a highly usable book. GUI Design for the professional. Another must have book for the serious HCI people. Rather too many models and slightly too much of a grand design for the practical developer

A great book for every Usability practitioner. Not only did I find the content of this book very informative and very useful, but in particular I liked the structure of the book and found it extremely usable. Each chapter contains context information at the beginning of the chapter, an out line of the chapter, summary notes on the side bar for quick review, sample techniques and forms, war stories, estimation of resources required to complete each step, etc This structure makes the book one of the most usable books I have ever used, and therefore one of the most useful companion in designing the user interface.

I have never written a review before, but I am so impressed with this book - it is indispensable. I particularly like the way the information is presented - very readable. Also valuable are the sections that address shortcuts and alternatives for applying techniques in the real world. I often am called to get involved during and after development and have to adapt "perfect world" techniques into very short cycles. This is a must have for people in our profession.

This book is great ! Really ! I pratice OO development especially following RUP. This book describe a full Usability process, with activities, guidelines, workload estimation and artifacts. You can directly put it at work, because you naturally see why an activity leads to another. All the book is good, even if it seems heavy (500+ pp), there is no waste of space. As a RUP practitioner, it's very easy to integrate this approach into the RUP and it naturally fits with Use Cases. Believe me: get it !

Or do other people think there is a need for creativity in user interface design? This book, while very helpful in providing a set of procedures to follow when evaluating users and their particular needs, leaves out the very important concept of the ART of user interface design. I see plenty of recommends for Tufte's trilogy of user oriented design books and for the book "Don't Make Me Think". These books are much more readable, and none of them are nearly so formulaic in their approach to user interface design.

Another problem I have with this book, and with many other computer books, is the size. Why does it take so much to say so little? Is there an editor in the house? There is definitely some good content in this book. I happens to be buried in a mountain of text.

As a senior usability architect holding a master's in human factors in information design and having 10 years experience in the software industry, I did not find this book helpful at all. I felt that the before-chapter flowcharts did exactly what Edward Tufte tells you not to do when displaying info and charts - don't use a lot of non-data ink - they were nigh impossible to follow (the unnecessary shadowing and overall gray/black page made it even more difficult. i found her examples basically worthless and the book very disorganized, in my opinion. after reading it, I thought, well that was a big waste of my time. I was very disappointed in the book, which had been highly recommended to me by a designer (which is why I bought it). If you're new to the field, this might be helpful, perhaps, but if you've been in the software industry (and especially in the usability industry for any length of time), you should already know much of this.

This book is very well written, content-rich and provides a plethora of examples that I can use on the job immediately. What more can a software developer ask for? I would give it 10 stars if the option was available.