About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design 3rd Edition

For over 30 years Alan Cooper has been a pioneer of the modern computing era. His groundbreaking work in software design and construction has influenced a generation of programmers and business people - and helped a generation of users. He is best known as the "Father of Visual Basic," inventor of personas, and founder of Cooper, the leading design consultancy. As Director of Design R&D at Cooper, Robert Reimann led dozens of design projects and helped develop many of the methods described in About Face 3. Currently, he is Manager of User Experience at Bose Corporation and President of IxDA, the Interaction Design Association. David Cronin is Director of Interaction Design at Cooper, where he s led the design of products for such diverse users as surgeons, museum visitors, online shoppers, automobile drivers, financial analysts, and the elderly.

1. Goal-Directed Design.

2. Implementation Models and Mental Models.

3. Beginners, Experts, and Intermediates.

4. Understanding Users: Qualitative Research.

5. Modeling Users: Personas and Goals.

6. The Foundations of Design: Scenarios and Requirements.

7. From Requirements to Design: the Interaction Framework and Design Refinement.

8. Patterns and Principles.

9. Platform and Posture.

10. Orchestration and Flow.

11. Eliminating Excise.

12. Making Software Considerate and Smart.

13. Metaphors and Idioms.

14. Visual Interface Design.

15. Searching and Finding: Improving Data Retrieval.

16. Understanding Undo.

17. Rethinking Files and Save.

18. Improving Data Entry.

19. Selection, Direct Manipulation and Mouse Interactions.

20. Window Behaviors.

21. Controls.

22. Menus.

23. Toolbars and ToolTips.

24. Dialogs.

25. Errors, Alerts, and Confirmation.

26. Designing for Different Needs.

Afterword.

Appendix A. Design Principles.

Appendix B. Bibliography.