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Designing Interfaces, Second Edition--New from O'Reilly

Press release: January 5, 2011

Designing Interfaces, Second Edition

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Sebastopol, CA—Despite all of the UI toolkits available today, it's still not easy to design good application interfaces. This bestselling book is one of the few reliable sources to help you navigate through the maze of design options. By capturing UI best practices and reusable ideas as design patterns, Designing Interfaces, Second Edition (O'Reilly Media, $54.99 USD) provides solutions to common design problems that you can tailor to the situation at hand.

"Designers in 2010 deal with the same thorny interface design problems that they did back in 2005, when the first edition of Designing Interfaces was published," says author Jenifer Tidwell (@uijtidwell), reflecting on her book's second edition. "But now they have additional thorny problems, including designing for mobile platforms, incorporating social media, and using highly interactive techniques that weren't very common back then. This book needed to offer some answers for these issues."

Tidwell adds, "I wrote the first edition of Designing Interfaces for people who designed desktop software and, to an extent, those who designed rich Web applications. That's changed. Now, most designers work on the Web, with sites and services that span a wide range of topics and degrees of interactivity. Many also work on mobile sites and apps. The new edition of Designing Interfaces is written for all of these designers."

This updated edition includes patterns for mobile apps and social media, as well as web applications and desktop software. Each pattern contains full-color examples and practical design advice that you can use immediately. Experienced designers can use this guide as a sourcebook of ideas; novices will find a roadmap to the world of interface and interaction design.

  • Design engaging and usable interfaces with more confidence and less guesswork
  • Learn design concepts that are often misunderstood, such as affordances, visual hierarchy, navigational distance, and the use of color
  • Get recommendations for specific UI patterns, including alternatives and warnings on when not to use them
  • Mix and recombine UI ideas as you see fit
  • Polish the look and feel of your interfaces with graphic design principles and patterns

"Anyone who's serious about designing interfaces should have this book on their shelf for reference. It's the most comprehensive cross-platform examination of common interface patterns anywhere."
—Dan Saffer, author of Designing Gestural Interfaces (O'Reilly) and Designing for Interaction (New Riders)

For a review copy or more information please email gretchen@oreilly.com. Please include your delivery address and contact information.

About the Author

Jenifer Tidwell has been designing and building user interfaces for industry for more than a decade. She has been researching user interface patterns since 1997, and designing and building complex applications and web interfaces since 1991.

View Jenifer Tidwell's full profile page.

Additional Resources
For more information about the book, including table of contents, author bios, and cover graphic, see: http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920000556

Designing Interfaces, Second Edition Designing Interfaces, Second Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
By Jenifer Tidwell
Print ISBN: 9781449379704   Ebook ISBN: 9781449379728  
Pages: 576
Print Price: $49.99   Ebook Price: $39.99  
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000

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About O’Reilly

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