Ask HC: Which books on user interface design do you wish your CEO/Cofounders would read? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HC: Which books on user interface design do you wish your CEO/Cofounders would read?

32 pointsUandIblog37 comments

Do you Hackers have some advice for my nonhacking self? Here is a list of some of the books I've already read, I haven't delved into UI yet. http://www.shelfari.com/o1517988867/shelf

Thanks HackerNewsCommunity, and I hope I didn't break any rules when I put that link to my bookshelf.

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I've done a little bit of consulting on interface design - even managed to have a site we did mentioned by Jakob Nielsen in a list of ten greatest redesigns. My take on UI is that it's not about reading books but all about people. Which is probably why a lot of programmers are terrible at UI (not meaning to hurt anyone here, just stating my opinion...) Here is how I work:

1) I constantly ask "will my mother understand this". If the answer is no simplify it. And my mother doesn't know that a page can be resized...

2) It's all about consistency. Links, textboxes, etc. should be the same across the site.

3) Hallway usability testing. make simple HTML mock-ups and watch a few people play with them - preferably your moms friends. This will tell you a lot about where the cranks are.

4) Stick to standards. Don't get all fancy and make your text fields arty and bleeding edge just because you can: your mom won't understand it.

5) Don't use flash unless you really really need to.

But the most important thing you can do to get better at user interfaces is to go to the local coffeshop, find a nice girl, chat her up, start talking about computers and realise how little she actually knows about how things work. There's a fair chance she might not even know what a browser is. Do this a few times - the experience is enlightening. Besides you'll get out and have a good time with some girls that think you're really smart :-)

Don't Make Me Think

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/032134...

Thanks Fiaz, I'm on it! Perhaps there is something else I should read when I finish the Steve Krug book? I'm a blank canvas..

Emotional Design

http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Design-Love-Everyday-Things/...

Designing Interactions

http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Interactions-Bill-Moggridge/...

Thank you for taking the time to help me.. Spectacular looking books, I've got my work cut out for me.

Not only is the book great, Steve Krug is an all around nice guy and fun to listen to. Just heard him speak yesterday at the Business of Software conference. If you ever get a chance to hear him in person, I'd take it.

One really cool thing about "Don't make me think" is that it is short and highly readable. For some reason books of this genre often seem like Russian novels of the 19th century in thickness. Probably the most usable book about usability out there.

I think the Tufte books are deep enough background that they might be useful to execs. Philosophy rather than UI specifics.

http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

Tufte books are awesome, but overkill for website UI.

As I said, deep background. I realize it was a bit off topic.

I agree. I'm constantly recommending Tufte to founders.

In my experience? Make sure to read this one, ancient Jakob Nielsen article:

"Why You Only Need to Test With Five Users" (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html)

The biggest problem I've seen so far isn't necessarily that clients and programmers have no taste, or no idea what makes a good UI. It's that we spend so much time bikeshedding, sketching and resketching UI ideas in meetings, trying to impress each other with our ability to divine what is going on in the head of an imaginary customer. All the while avoiding the task of observing any actual customers!

If you're short on time: http://joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html

Spolsky's work is light and easy to read. This work is geared towards "progammers", although that is not mutually exclusive with the word "CEO". It'll help you avoid more obvious mistakes. Nielson and About Face are more thorough. I haven't read Don't Make Me Think but I've heard good things (and lots of comments here, so obviously I should read that one...)

"The Inmates are Running the Asylum" is a non-techie book which covers more of the business-case 'why'.

I second. I read "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" after I read "Don't Make me Think." These are 2 books I not only reread but recommend every person involved with development or design around web to read.

"The Non-Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams.

It was written without the web in mind. It's mostly about typography and spacing for posters, business cards, flyers, etc. But it translates suprisingly well to web design.

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-Willia...

Often, Interaction Design gets lumped in with Interface Design (or simply overlooked). For this I suggest:

"Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Web Sites" by Andrew Chak (2003)

• Similar to "Don't Make me Think", but focuses more on personal interaction & choices more than layout.

"Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points" by 37 Signals (2004)

• Error management (not just 404s) is one of the most overlooked UI portions of a web project and are often left up to the developers to "figure out".

http://www.amazon.com/Submit-Now-Designing-Persuasive-VOICES...

http://www.amazon.com/Defensive-Design-Web-improve-messages/...

My personal favorite is Magic Ink:

http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/

Looks great, the examples seem so obvious! I bookmarked the Ebook and I'll read it in it's entirety.

I would go with just these Jackob Nielsen's articles:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/tabs.html

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/sales_cycle.html

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/wysiwyg.html

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html

The Phaidon Design Classics, although they are not specifically about web interface design, are AWESOME. http://www.phaidon.com/designclassics/ They are great to look over for inspiration and to see examples of products that really pushed the envelope of design forward. BTW, if you shelled out for the box set you would score major brownie points with the CEO ;) as they are very accessible to people who aren't actually doing the grunt/brain work of design.

More along the lines of computing, Rules of Play: http://tinyurl.com/554oj5 is a great read. Probably not what you'd want to give your CEO, though. Very inspiring and thoughtful writing.

Since Don't Make Me Think already came up, going to add About Face (have 2.0 but heard 3.0 is even better) http://www.amazon.com/About-Face-Essentials-Interaction-Desi...

and Design of Everyday Things http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/d...

I did a course at University called Human Computer Interaction. Essentially it was the science of user interfaces. The course book of the same name by Dix, Finlay, Abowd and Beale (3rd edition) was really good. It contained a lot of accessible theory and plenty of heuristics too that you can implement straight away. Highly recommended.

http://www.hcibook.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Computer-Interaction-3rd-Alan-Di...

Which of the books say that a CEO shouldn't be meddling in User Interface Design and should worry about running the business instead?

None that I'd want to read.

In the earliest stage, if the CEO's not either technical or the product lead, he's a waste of space. There's nothing to run before you have a business.

The early stage CEO should be a product designer (or programmer), and then eventually move to the side to bring in someone who really enjoys "running the business" as a CEO.

Then he's not the CEO. He's the Founder and Product Lead, which still doesn't mean he should be designing user interfaces.

Now, if the post said "What should a budding user interface designer read?" then the other answers are all great. But that's not what the post is.

Thinking that a "CEO" needs to be the user interface designer is pretty obvious start down a VERY VERY bad path, IMO.

The founder and product lead is the CEO until the company can afford to get someone else to be the CEO. You're just splitting hairs...

I believe that it is actually quite important for the product lead to have a strong sense of design - otherwise, where is he leading the product?

That might be true in YC-ish startups, but seems to be the opposite of what I've observed in the rest of the startup world. The CEO writes figures out what the market is and how to reach it; where the buttons are is not his concern.

I guess we have differing experiences then :-) My current startup's CEO is also our founder + product lead.

The LAST thing you want is your CEO and fellow developers doing is reading a book on good UI design. Do yourself a favor and consult an expert in the field (designer) and leave the CEO/developers to do things that they're actually good at (like promote the company and code)

Yes and no.

While I understand your point about meddling CEOs, having one that is aware of the ins and outs of UI and can understand the competitive advantage of having good design can only be beneficial.

Why you assume that devs not understanding anything but code is a good thing though is beyond me. This is what happens in the enterprise, and look at the products they give us.

Yes, good point JoseFresco. It's possible I didn't phrase my original question perfectly as I was trying to be concise. In a perfect world there would be a budget to hire proper specialists, but for me, right now, I'm an army of one. And a cash poor army of one at that! So at this stage I've gotta do everything myself. It's tough not knowing how to write code- I'm actually quite interested in learning but I don't have the time, and I will never be any good compared to you guys. I'm building a prototype/demo so I can convey my idea properly in order to get funded, I anticipate doing most of the design myself at this early stage, and I'm assuming it will all have to be redone later for the reasons you already mentioned. Thanks so much for your input, I agree with you completely.

So, if you won't do the code cause you don't know how and you never will, why do you think you can also do the design?

I've never really understood this. Most of the time this line of thinking leads to even worse design than your code could ever be.

"So, if you won't do the code cause you don't know how and you never will, why do you think you can also do the design?"

I have good taste, thats why.

The Design Of Everyday Things (mentioned above as well) is one of my favourite design books.

But will reading books help? What is your intent in suggesting such books to them?

it's specific to certain types of displays, but Information Dashboard Design is pretty solid. not great for getting customers in, but excellent for internal reporting and tracking. these things make ceo's happy. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596100167?ie=UTF8&tag=...)

don't make me click the humane interface all of tufte books but beautiful evidence which I found disappointing

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