Virginia Howlett s Visual Interface Design

Howlett, Virginia. Visual Interface Design for Windows. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996.

This book presents user interface design from a visual designer's point of view. Virginia Howlett is a former director of visual interface design at Microsoft and was responsible for the team that designed the visual interfaces of Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and Microsoft Windows NT. Covering the fundamentals of graphic design and teaching you how to recognize common user interface mistakes, the book presents many important design principles, such as simplicity, balance, restraint, scale, contrast, focus, emphasis, grouping, and grid, as well as valuable information about using 3D, fonts, color, and icons.

Howlett's book is especially important if you are creating highly visual, consumer-oriented programs, such as home, multimedia, or children's programs. While you most likely will be working with a graphic designer on such projects, it is still important to understand what this type of interface is trying to accomplish. Even if you are not working on multimedia-style programs, this book gives several excellent examples of common user interface mistakes that programmers are likely to make, such as poor use of color and contrast, poor use of 3-D, and screen design that lacks focus and balance.

The chapters on graphic design principles (Chapter 4, "Universal Design Principles," and Chapter 5, "Graphic Information Design Principles") as well as the chapters on visual design elements (Chapter 10, "Color"; Chapter 11, "Icons and Imagery"; and Chapter 12, "Fonts") are must-reads. The book also presents two user interface makeover examples that are outstanding (Chapter 13, "Interface Makeovers"). Short and to the point, they feature problems that programmers are likely to create. One of the examples is the makeover of Microsoft Encarta from the original version (apparently designed by programmers) to the current version, which is visually vastly superior. Finally, the last chapter (Chapter 15, "Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them") presents several useful tips on how to avoid common user interface problems.

One of the reasons this book is so effective is that it is a quick read. The ideas are well presented, and you're always given the essential information you need, typically with an excellent example screen shot to make the point. The subjects are not beaten to death, and there is only a tinge of mumbo-jumbo—you might be put off by the discussion of contextual inquiry, for example. This book would not be nearly as effective if it were larger. Page per page, it is possibly the best user interface book out there.

If you don't like the look of your programs, this is the first place to turn. In the author's own words: "Obviously, all of these topics could be treated in more depth, but my goal is to give you just enough information to inspire you to make better, more beautiful, Windows products." Enough said.

This is a must-have book.