About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design 3rd Edition

by Alan Cooper (Author), Robert Reimann (Author), David Cronin (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0470084113

ISBN-10: 0470084111

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About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
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This completely updated volume presents the effective and practical tools you need to design great desktop applications, Web 2.0 sites, and mobile devices. You’ll learn the principles of good product behavior and gain an understanding of Cooper’s Goal-Directed Design method, which involves everything from conducting user research to defining your product using personas and scenarios. Ultimately, you’ll acquire the knowledge to design the best possible digital products and services.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

When the first edition of About Face was published in 1995, the idea of designing products based on human goals was a revolutionary concept. Thanks to the work of Alan Cooper and other pioneers, interaction design is now widely recognized as a unique and vital discipline, but our work is far from finished.

This completely updated volume presents the effective and practical tools you need to design great desktop applications, Web 2.0 sites, and mobile devices. This book will teach you the principles of good product behavior and introduce you to Cooper's Goal-Directed Design method, from conducting user research to defining your product using personas and scenarios. In short, About Face 3 will show you how to design the best possible digital products and services.

About the Author

For over 30 years Alan Cooper has been a pioneer of the modern computing era. His groundbreaking work in software design and construction has influenced a generation of programmers and business people—and helped a generation of users. He is best known as the "Father of Visual Basic," inventor of personas, and founder of Cooper, the leading design consultancy.

As Director of Design R&D at Cooper, Robert Reimann led dozens of design projects and helped develop many of the methods described in About Face 3. Currently, he is Manager of User Experience at Bose Corporation and President of IxDA, the Interaction Design Association.

David Cronin is Director of Interaction Design at Cooper, where he's led the design of products for such diverse users as surgeons, museum visitors, online shoppers, automobile drivers, financial analysts, and the elderly.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley; 3rd edition (May 7, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 648 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0470084111
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0470084113
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.07 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.4 x 1.4 x 9.26 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #969,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #448 in User Experience & Website Usability
- #4,507 in Computer Software (Books)
- #9,524 in Computer Science (Books)

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60 ratings

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Alan Cooper
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For over 30 years, Alan Cooper has been a pioneer of the modern computing era. His groundbreaking work in software design and construction has influenced a generation of programmers and business people alike and helped a generation of users embrace interaction design. He is best known as the "Father of Visual Basic" and is the founder of Cooper, a leading interaction design consultancy.
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Robert Reimann
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Robert Reimann has spent the past 20 years pushing the boundaries of digital products as a designer, writer, and consultant. He has led dozens of web, desktop, and device-based interaction design projects, for startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Robert has lectured on interaction design and UX methods and principles at major universities and corporations, and to international industry audiences.
Robert was a founding director of the Interaction Design Association (www.ixda.org) and became its first President in 2006. He has also held advisory board positions for AIGA Experience Design, the Information Architecture Institute, and UC Berkeley's Institute of Design (BiD) and was a board member of Design Museum Boston (www.designmuseumboston.org) from 2010-2012. With Alan Cooper, Robert is co-author of two bestselling editions of About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design.
Robert's past positions include Principal Interaction Designer at Sonos, Associate Creative Director at frog design, Manager of User Experience at Bose Corporation, and Director of Design R&D at Cooper, where he played a key role building their design practice, and in the development and refinement of their goal-directed design methods, including personas and scenario-based design. Robert is currently Principal Interaction Designer at PatientsLikeMe.
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Scott

Definitive interaction design bible

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2013

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This book serves two purposes:

1. It's a great intro to interaction design and UX in general

2. It's a handy reference for when specific design questions come up and you need to remember what the best practice is for a certain type of interface element.

I'm a UX Designer with several years experience, and I still can't get enough of this book. Cooper knows his stuff (of course; he goes way back with software and he's the head of one of the big UX consultancies) and lays it out simply and logically. If you do any kind of software design, read this and remember it. If you're a designer, keep it on hand.

One person found this helpful

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Chad Mills

great even for programmers with no design experience

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2012

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I really learned a lot from this book. I can't think of any reason to give it less than 5 stars.

It's a great overview of a field I'm not particularly familiar with, so I can't comment about the choice of topics. However, what is covered is covered rather effectively. There are wonderful examples throughout to concretize the principles illustrated.

The author has a clear perspective on what good and bad design is, and it was very tastefully done. It doesn't come across as derogatory even when criticizing a particular approach or product. It's always a learning experience to read through an example you're already familiar with.

This book helped me to see design as a sort of science with many useful principles. It won't make me good at design per se, but there was enough practical suggestions that it'll greatly improve the apps I write for fun. And the theory also serves as a good context for the practical advice. They're connected very well, with a good mix of each.

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Chris R.

If you're an interface dummy like me, this is a good read.

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2012

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I'm a full-time software engineer/consultant who couldn't interface design his way out of the proverbial wet paper bag.

This book didn't really change that.

What it did do, however, is get me to start recognizing the things that make a bad UI/UX to the point where I could, and this is important, properly quantify what was wrong. I could explain the details I was looking at in relevant terms instead of having to rely on things like "feels wrong" or "just isn't right."

If you're a bit of an interface dummy like me... yea, pick it up and you won't be sorry.

5 people found this helpful

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Alan

Great For A Few, OK For Some, Poor For Most

Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2014

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This book is like the Christian Bible - a few people will love hunkering down to read it, some people will think it's OK and most will think it's poor.

Great For A Few
The content in this book is exhaustive: ranging from the high level philosophy and motivations for creating the Goal Directed Design method, all the way down to specific examples of implementations. This makes the book perfect for two people:

1. If you want to learn everything about the Cooper design methodology and don't mind investing a lot of time reading about it.
2. Fans of the methodology who want a reference source.

OK For Some
As many others have commented, this book does come across as 'preachy' and 'a scholar trying to impress... with verbose language, rather than concise factual explanation'. Because of this, it's hard to keep focused on any solid content that is in there. The book and it's it's processes are old and mostly outdated; however, if you're a design novice or have trouble 'getting it', this book can lay down some good foundations.

Poor For Most
This book is cumbersome, hard to read and will lose all but the most dedicated readers. This is ironic since the book focuses so much on creating 'user friendly' and 'human' products. Also, the content is specific to the Cooper Design Process & philosophy and it's not a general design book. Goal Directed Design is a tool, and just like any tool, it should be used only when appropriate. Likewise, if you don't agree with the method, which many people don't, then the book will not be very helpful.

5 people found this helpful

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Public Name fdkslfjslfs

Great book

Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2011

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This book is an exceptional read, the A-Z of interaction design's methodology, process and discussion. I appreciate the fact the authors give various opinions on certain procedures by other authors/practitioners and explain why they do/do not like it within context. The book also gives reference to other literature where more explanation may be needed (like on usability testing or persona research). I highly recommend it.

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Liz Mark

Buy it already!

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2011

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I am a UX specialist and have read most of the titles in the subject. This one is far superior by being most comprehensive yet well organized and able to teach you actually how to approach to the process step by step, unlike others just giving some tips here and there and leaving you confused. Starting with web-based application and projects, this book should be a fundamental must-read before starting to do any type of interface & interaction & UX design project.

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Gib

Alan is the master. Design is so important today ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2015

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Alan is the master. Design is so important today in software. I wish I could afford his consulting fees. The book will do for now.

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Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2016

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A great UX book. A must read for any designer.

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King George

Great Academic Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 17, 2011

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I brought this along with 'Dont Make Me Think', which is the 'classic' book on this sort of stuff, and I must say im impressed. Personally I like the extra ooomppff of a heavy accademic approach to anything. This goes into a lot of detail and depth on things, which gives it a lot of credibility. In comparison to 'Dont Make Me Think' which is out of date I think, its not 'subjective'. It provides you with a technical framework to understand the issues it deals with. 'Dont Make Me Think' gives an emotive framework and is subjective. It gives you a rich vocabulary with which to deal with the issues with customers. For example, personas, user levels and interfaces.

My only observation is that it is focussed more on computer interfaces than web sites. Although its all the same, I think its important to bear in mind as many references focus on product development and not web development which is more fluid in my opinion. As such, a lot of the methodology is better suited to teams that have the time to go to the next level to get userability right before a product launch in comparison to web sites which are oftem more lightweight and flexible.

Definatly recommended for people that dont want a phamphlet on the subject, ie the sort of book designed to be read on a plane trip like many others are.

4 people found this helpful

Jeremy McGee

If you really care about users, buy this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2007

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Deeply relevant and very influential: if you're a software developer, you owe it to your users to buy this book.

The book is organised into three distinct parts, each of which has a rather different tone. The first part is an introduction to "personas" and their goals. Much emphasis is placed on detailed research such as interviews with sample users, which is a fine luxury if you have the resources and time! However, even developers working in smaller teams will find the general principles useful.

The second part is concerned with the overall approach that an application should take. It discusses "posture": whether an application should be "full-screen" and sovereign or an infrequently used utility, and how this changes the top-level design.

This second part includes my favourite chapter, "Eliminating Excise", which is really pretty funny - it points out why we find prompts from Word annoying and why Motorola phones are just plain frustrating. However, the advice to fix these frustrations might be a bit over the top unless you have an infinite development budget: I too would love to have multi-level undos that are persistent across application sessions.

The final part covers specific advice on layouts and controls. It brings together more concrete suggestions based on the previous two parts.

It's quite possible that the ideas in this book influenced the design of applications such as Office 2007 and iTunes. Although few developers have the challenge of designing Web sites or applications for the mass market, the advice in this book is worth considering even for corporate applications. Just watch the budget!

11 people found this helpful

Mr. L. M. Mcivor

Probably the best single book on interaction design

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 19, 2012

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Revised version of a book that's been around for some time. This is absolutely essential reading for anybody working in interaction design or other areas of user experience. Very accessible and broad in scope.

CMDeane

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2015

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Common sense when you have read it. So worth reading if you design interfaces etc

A landmark book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 12, 2013

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A must-have with the easiest to understand overview of the domain that I have ever come across. Highly recommended for both breadth and depth on the subject, and plenty of concrete examples.

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About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design 3rd Edition

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About the authors

Alan Cooper

Robert Reimann

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