Designing Web Interfaces

Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions

By Bill Scott, Theresa Neil
January 2009
Pages: 332
ISBN 10: 0-596-51625-8 | ISBN 13: 9780596516253
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Description

If you want to learn how to create great user experiences on the Web, this practical book offers more than 75 design patterns for building interfaces that provide rich interaction. Distilled by two longtime professionals after years of experience at Sabre, Yahoo, and Netflix, these design patterns and best practices are neatly organized according to six key principles that help you take advantage of current interactive web technologies.
Full Description

Want to learn how to create great user experiences on today's Web? In this book, UI experts Bill Scott and Theresa Neil present more than 75 design patterns for building web interfaces that provide rich interaction. Distilled from the authors' years of experience at Sabre, Yahoo!, and Netflix, these best practices are grouped into six key principles to help you take advantage of the web technologies available today. With an entire section devoted to each design principle, Designing Web Interfaces helps you:

Make It Direct-Edit content in context with design patterns for In Page Editing, Drag & Drop, and Direct Selection
Keep It Lightweight-Reduce the effort required to interact with a site by using In Context Tools to leave a "light footprint"
Stay on the Page-Keep visitors on a page with overlays, inlays, dynamic content, and in-page flow patterns
Provide an Invitation-Help visitors discover site features with invitations that cue them to the next level of interaction
Use Transitions-Learn when, why, and how to use animations, cinematic effects, and other transitions
React Immediately-Provide a rich experience by using lively responses such as Live Search, Live Suggest, Live Previews, and more

Designing Web Interfaces illustrates many patterns with examples from working websites. If you need to build or renovate a website to be truly interactive, this book gives you the principles for success.

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Media reviews
"What I like about it is that it is a "something to think about" type of book that does not shove someone else's idea's at you, but rather provides a reflective look at how humans think and how to build a website to work with people. I also like the fact that it is in color and provides excellent examples of the topics discussed. If you are designer, web developer, or even a manager of a web based product, you really must have this book."
-- Thomas Testi, Blogcritics.org

"The layout of the book is very easy to follow: plenty of illustrations and a clear examples along with various break-out boxes. This is a good reference book to keep around; the principals are good ones to keep in mind, even if your project doesn't quite fit into the cases provided, though I think anything larger than a personal website is going to get into areas where the lessons here are applicable. "
-- Zoltan Hunt, YYZtech.ca

"Once again, the mighty Thor, wielding the great hammer Mjollnir, has bested foul Loki and brought unto me a book which will give me the tools and knowledge to build or renovate a website to be truly Interactive! "
-- Lee "P.K." Crawford, Sacramento Book Review

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