Updated and corrected, January 2003.

Recommended Reading and References

Beyer, H., and Holtzblatt, K. Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. NY: Morgan Kaufman, 1997.

This long-awaited basic reference on contextual inquiry and design has become a classic. Elaborate, but effective strategy for customer-centered requirements capture and definition. Despite title, relatively little about design itself.

Bias, R. G., and Mayhew, D. J. Cost-Justifying Usability. Boston: Academic Press, 1994.

Indispensable reference for convincing bosses or clients that getting the user interface right is worthwhile.

Cockburn, A. Writing Effective Use Cases. Addison-Wesley, 2000.

Not about usability or user interfaces, but loaded with good stuff on use cases.

Constantine, L. L. (ed.) forUSE 2002 Proceedings of the First International COnference on Usage-Centered Design. Rowley, MA: Ampersand Press, 2002.

Diverse collection of important papers on the state-of-the-art in usage-centered design.

Constantine, L. L., & Lockwood, L. A. D. Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1999.

Praised for thoroughness and criticized for length, this is the comprehensive text. Although best practice in usage-centered design is a moving target, this remains the definitive source on the subject.

Constantine, L. L. The Peopleware Papers. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2001.

Updated classic with essays on management, teamwork, tools, techniques, and human factors. About a third of book is on usability and user interfaces.

Constantine, L. L. Ed. Beyond Chaos: The Expert Edge in Software Development Management. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2001.

The management side, as seen through the words and wisdom of contributors to the Management Forum in Software Development magazine.

Cooper, A. About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design. Foster City, CA: IDG Books, 1995.

One of the very best, both practical and provocative, and a favorite of developers. Covers everything from buttcons to shangles, grapples to gizmos. Outrageously opinionated and invariably insightful even if sometimes off target.

Cooper, A. The Inmates are running the Asylum. Indiannapolis, IN: Sams, 1999.

Outlines Goal-Directed Design, a second cousin of usage-centered design. Not too much detail but plenty of good arguments and impassioned polemic.

Cox, K., and Walker, D. User Interface Design. Second Edition. Singapore: Prentice Hall Asia, 1993.

Solid though somewhat uninspired introduction to user interface design. Includes documentation in usability; an often neglected topic.

Galitz, W. O. The Essential Guide to User Interface Design. New York: Wiley, 1996.

Update of earlier Galitz classics. Solid introduction to basics with thorough coverage, albeit at times a bit obsessive and repetitive.

Hix, D., and Hartson, H. Rex. Developing User Interfaces. New York: Wiley, 1993.

Somewhat idiosyncratic treatment of UI design. Includes practice exercises; emphasizes development process, analysis and modeling of user action.

Johnson, J. GUI Bloopers: Don’ts and Do’s for Software and Web Designers. Morgan Kaufman, 2000.

A compendium of fairly rigid rules with heaps of concrete examples of both kinds. The approach has its disadvantages, but developers find this a useful resource.

Mayhew, D. J. Principles and Guidelines in Software User Interface Design. Prentice Hall, 1992.

Thorough and detailed. Macintosh-influenced, but broadly useful. Peppered with hundreds of specific rules.

Nielsen, J. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. New Riders Publications, 1999.

This long-awaited book is loaded with ideas and recommendations, but, like the Web itself, it is a bit chaotic and redundant. Much of this can be found at http://www.useit.com.

Nielsen, J. Usability Engineering. Boston: Academic Press, 1993.

Low-cost, pragmatic, "you-can-do-it-too" approach. Emphasizes small number of sound, broadly applicable rules. Covers inspections and testing as well as design.

Nielsen, J., & Mack, R. L. (eds).. Usability Inspection Methods. New York: Wiley, 1994.

Well-balanced collection of papers, including Nielsen's "heuristic inspections" and Bias's "pluralistic walkthroughs." Methods comparisons plus good information and arguments on value of inspections.

Norman, D. O. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

Readable, fun, and full of wisdom about usability in systems of all kinds. Covers basic principles with persuasive and familiar examples. Must-have classic.

Powell, T. A., with Jones, D. A., and Cutts, D. C. Web Site Engineering: Beyond Web Page Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.

Applies established software engineering approaches to Web site design.

Preece, J. et al. Human-Computer Interaction. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994.

Comprehensive textbook, replete with interviews with leading lights (Hix, Norman, Shneiderman, etc.).

Rosenfeld, L., Morville, P. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. O’Reilly & Associates, 1998.

Deservedly respected basic introduction to Web site architecture approached as a whole.

Sano, D. Designing Large-Scale Web Sites: A Visual Design Methodology. New York: Wiley, 1996.

Sound basic approach to Web site architecture and design.

Shneiderman, B. Designing the User Interface. 2nd Edition. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993.

Update of an excellent textbook by innovative thinker on user interface design. Must have reference.

Spool, J. M., Scanlon, T., Schroeder, W., Snyder, C., and DeAngelo, T. Web Site Usability: a Designer’s Guide. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufman, 1998.

Slim but sophisticated volume with many sound suggestions regarding Web usability and design details.

Tognazzini, B. Tog on Interface. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1992.

Funny, idiosyncratic, Apple-saturated classic; full of good ideas as well as malarkey; take with grain of salt.

van Harmelan, M. (ed.), Object Modeling and User Interface Design. Boston: Addison Wesley, 2001.

A collection of highly varied chapters on methods and models with enough meat to make it worth the price.