Literature and sites

Interaction Design patterns literature

Websites

• Amsterdam Collection of Interaction Design Patterns by Martijn van Welie.
  Quite extensive, by far the most useful online pattern collection on Interaction Design.

Books

• The design of sites : patterns, principles, and processes for crafting a customer-centered Web experience by Douglas K. Van Duyne, James Landay, Jason I. Hong (2002) - Must read book, essential for all interaction designers.
• A pattern approach to Interaction Design by Jan Borchers (2001)

Books (not recommended)

Articles

Articles (not recommended)

• Experiences - A Pattern Language for User Interface Design by Todd Coram and Jim Lee.
  Somewhat older article. Attempt to create a pattern language, but quite incomplete. They have a too generic approach to patterns, and end up with obscure pattern names, like "Garden of Windows", "Zen Garden", "Goal Oriented Areas".
  Exemplifying is the problem/solution pair of the pattern "Visual Symbols":
  Problem: The visual display of data is the most efficient way to communicate information. However, you must not overwhelm the user with useless data or misleading metaphors.
  Solution:
  Design the interface based on visual cues that are recognizable and understandable by the target audience. Determine if standard symbols (e.g. ISO or IEEE symbols) exist before creating your own. Examine existing applications in the same problem domain. Resist being overly clever and keep your metaphors simple.
• Patterns for Designing Navigable Information Spaces (PDF) by Gustavo Rossi, Daniel Schwabe, Fernando Lyardet (1998)
  Article that descibes 5 patterns that are published in "Pattern systems for hypermedia" by Garrido, Rossi and Schwabe. Peculiar approach to interaction design patterns: these use the language of the GOF patterns the language of the programmer - but not to great success: the problems and solutions remain technical and low-level:
  A naive object-oriented designer will follow closely main O-O definitions by locating the state, structure and behavior of one domain object into the same application object. He would never separate state or structure (as in the State or Bridge design patterns), nor would he allocate behaviors in different classes (as in the Strategy or Command patterns).
  Things are made more difficult than they are. One wonders for whom these patterns are written. Take for instance the pattern Active Reference (that is in fact the Breadcrumb in web design):
  Solution:
  A good solution is to maintain an active and perceivable navigational object acting as an index for other navigational objects (either nodes or sub-indexes). This object remains perceivable together with target objects, letting the user either explore those objects or select another related target. In this way, we will be able to interact with both the index and the target nodes. Note that we are slightly changing the usual navigation style in hypermedia (Web) applications in which when we depart from a node (or index) it is closed and we can only return to it by backtracking from the current one.

Interaction Design literature

Books

• Don't make me think - by Steve Krug, 2000. Excellent introduction to the most common mistakes and tips in website interaction.
• About Face - by Alan Cooper, 2003. Must-read for Interaction Designers and developers.
• Mapping web sites by Paul Kahn and Krzysztof Lenk (2001) ISBN 90-72007-74-3. A lot of examples of site maps from 1996 to 2001, but does not go very deep in analysis.

Articles

Periodicals

• UIEtips - weekly e-mail newsletter from User Interface Engineering: UIEtips is our free weekly e-mail newsletter providing articles, commentaries, and interviews on usability, web design, and information architecture. You'll get our latest research delivered to your door as well as information about our upcoming events and happenings in the world of usability.
• Articles from User Interface Engineering - articles published in UIEtips. Topics: Search, User Behavior, Emerging Technologies, User Research & Personas, Web Design Strategies, Design Tools & Techniques, User Testing, Online Branding
• forUse - the Newsletter of Usage-Centered Design - forUse is an electronic newsletter published by e-mail approximately 9 times a year. forUse covers new developments in usage-centered design. Regularly features include tips and techniques on design, modeling, and management, questions and answers on technical issues in usage-centered design, plus news and upcoming events. Subscribers get early notice of new papers and publications, and the newsletter features complement material on the Web site.

Individual articles

• RUP & Goal-Directed Design: Toward a New Development Process by Dave Cronin
• Articles and Papers on Information Architecture - list of articles from eleganthack.com

Websites

• InfoDesign: To surf the community - "bogieland.com" -- News aggregation site, updated daily. Greate starting point for all things related to interaction design: accessibility, information design, information architecture, user experience, usability, visual design...
• uidesign.net - Volunteer site - At uidesign.net, we want to study the processes, the strategies, the patterns and the aesthetics of Interaction Design and Interface Implementation. We want to raise UI Design to a more sophisticated level than it has been before. This site wants to be above field alignment problems, above action-object, object-action debates, above metaphor. We want to move things to a new, more practical level. We want to put some science and some repeatability into User Interface Design. To lift practical User Interface Design from the realms of "Black Magic" into a well understood discipline. To make the chance of a good UI Design so much higher.
• User Interface Engineering - Founded in 1988, User Interface Engineering is a leading research-driven company specializing in web-site and product usability. By providing usability information based on detailed observations rather than opinions, we empower development teams to create web sites, software applications, and other products that increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. See also: UIEtips
• Boxes and Arrows - Boxes and Arrows is the definitive source for the complex task of bringing architecture and design to the digital landscape. There are various titles and professions associated with this undertaking - information architecture, information design, interaction design, interface design - but when we looked at the work that we were actually doing, we found a "community of practice" with similarities in outlook and approach that far outweighed our differences.
• Simian Design - blog with entries about Info Design, Interaction Design and UI Design
• DeLijst - Created and maintained by students of the IDM in the Hague. 'DeLijst is a nifty collection of UI and IA resources. Though in Dutch, it's not too hard to make one's way around.' Very handy is the site's sitemap.
• eleganthack.com - Information architecture, usability and interaction design issues, plus the odd thought by Christina Wodtke (author of Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web) - eleganthack.com is a one-person website devoted to exploring and furthering the emerging art of user experience design and information architecture on the web. See also the blog: http://www.eleganthack.com/blog/
• Web Design Practices - examining current design practices on the web - Web Design Practices is a site devoted to helping designers understand what design practices are currently in use on the Web—and aims to gather research about the usability of commonly-employed design practices.
• OK/Cancel - Weblog featuring a strip (cartoon) about recognizable Interaction Design/HCI/Usability situations, often commenting the corporate design practice. Each strip is elaborated in an accompanying article.

(General) Pattern language literature

Books

• A pattern language : towns, buildings, construction by Christopher Alexander (1977)

Articles

• Christopher Alexander: An Introduction for Object-Oriented Designers by Doug Lea (1993) - Provides a detailed overview of the Pattern Language approach to Object-Oriented programming. Gives overview of process and form of writing patterns.
• The Structure of Pattern Languages by Nikos A. Salingaros (2000) - a general discussion on pattern languages
  (Cached version)
• Implementing a Pattern Library in the Real World: A Yahoo! Case Study - Yahoo’s multiple business units, each containing decentralized user experience teams, have a natural tendency to design different solutions to similar problems. Left unchecked, these differences would weaken the Yahoo! brand and produce a less usable network of products. Designers and managers have discussed “standards” as a way to solve this problem but this standards content (often contained only in the memories of designers) has never existed in a commonly accessible format.

Websites

• Patterns Home Page, "Your Patterns Library" - resource collection to pattern books, conferences, pattern writing, mailing lists, tools, and so on.
• XML Design Patterns - Develop effective DTDs and XML Schema documents for your XML using structural design patterns.

Other pattern languages

• Software design patterns book by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides (1995)
• Patterns of Software (the whole book) pdf by Richard P Gabriel

Usability literature

Books

• The psychology of everyday things by Donald Norman
• Submit Now by Andrew Chak

Articles

Periodicals

• Usability News - Usability News is a free web newsletter that is produced by the Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL). The SURL team specializes in software/web user interface design research, human-computer interaction research, and usability testing.
• UIEtips - weekly newsletter from User Interface Engineering: UIEtips is our free weekly e-mail newsletter providing articles, commentaries, and interviews on usability, web design, and information architecture. You'll get our latest research delivered to your door as well as information about our upcoming events and happenings in the world of usability.

Websites

• WebWord.com - WebWord Usability Weblog - The site is devoted to helping you improve your Internet presence. WebWord.com is unique in that it takes a very broad approach to usability and human factors. John gives you quality information about everything from the usability of email to reading on the web to gaining the trust of your users.

Other literature

Websites

• Keep It Simple - columns by Peter-Paul Koch - Keep It Simple is just what it says, a call to keep web design and web development as simple as possible. In this series of columns, Peter-Paul Koch will explore the reasons why some people think simple sites are boring sites and will explain how to find simple solutions for seemingly complex problems.

Articles

• Designing Navigable Information Spaces (PDF) - Mark A. Foltz. Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. - Abstract: Currently, computer users are "lost in hyperspace:'' they have difficulty knowing where they are and locating the information they desire. To remedy this, information should be situated in an information space that enables people to explore knowledge in the same way they navigate in the physical environment. This thesis will enumerate a set of principles to guide information space design, enabling designers to create effective information spaces. The design principles fall into three categories: communication principles, which inform the spatial organization of information; wayfinding principles, which structure the space to allow successful navigation; and computational principles, which use the computational nature of digital media to enhance the information space. Two information spaces designed using these principles are presented and analyzed: the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research information space and the Course VI information space.

Useful links

• Our Favorite Books: Recommendations from the Staff of Boxes and Arrows - Long page of essentially good books
• Library of Congress Online Catalog