Designing with the Mind in Mind

Early user interface (UI) practitioners were trained in cognitive psychology, from which UI design rules were based. But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In Designing with the Mind in Mind, Jeff Johnson, author of the best selling GUI Bloopers, provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow.

• The first practical, all-in-one source for practitioners on user interface design rules and why, when and how to apply them.
• Provides just enough background into the reasoning behind interface design rules that practitioners can make informed decisions in every project.
• Gives practitioners the insight they need to make educated design decisions when confronted with tradeoffs, including competing design rules, time constrictions, or limited resources.

Interface designers and developers, software designers, web designers, web application designers, interaction designers, appliance designers and developers, information architects, usability engineers, usability evaluators and development managers, students and teachers in computer science, graphic design, HCI, and usability.

Acknowledgments Foreword Introduction Chapter 1 We Perceive What We Expect Chapter 2 Our Vision is Optimized to See Structure Chapter 3 We Seek and Use Visual Structure Chapter 4 Reading is Unnatural Chapter 5 Our Color Vision is Limited Chapter 6 Our Peripheral Vision is Poor Chapter 7 Our Attention is Limited; Our Memory is Imperfect Chapter 8 Limits on Attention, Shape, Thought and Action Chapter 9 Recognition are Easy; Recall is Hard Chapter 10 Learning from Experience and Performing Learned Actions are Easy; Problem Solving and Calculation are Hard Chapter 11 Many Factors Affect Learning Chapter 12 We Have Time Requirements Epilogue Appendix Bibliography Index