NOTE: This blog has been moved to http://www.looksgoodworkswell.com

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Upcoming O'Reilly Book - Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions

Update: Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions is now available on Amazon for pre-order. Planned release is December/January timeframe.


Since about February Theresa Neil & I have been actively writing a new book for O'Reilly.

This is part of a group of books O'Reilly is publishing around Design. Designing Interfaces is an excellent book on Design Patterns by Jenifer Tidwell. Designing Gestural Interfaces will be coming out soon by Dan Saffer. Jenifer's book did an amazing job of cataloging desktop and web design patterns. Dan's book focuses on all of the new and upcoming interactions around gesture based interfaces.

Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions focuses strictly on a set of six principles for designing Web applications to be highly interactive.

The six principles are:
  1. Make it Direct
  2. Keep it Lightweight
  3. Stay on the Page
  4. Provide an Invitation
  5. Use Transitions
  6. Be Reactive
The principles are illustrated by a series of design patterns called out in various chapters shown here in a table of contents.

Principle One: Make it Direct
  • Chapter 1. In Page Editing
  • Chapter 2. Drag and Drop
  • Chapter 3. Direct Selection
Principle Two: Keep it Lightweight
  • Chapter 4. In-Context Tools
Principle Three: Stay on the Page
  • Chapter 5. Overlays
  • Chapter 6. Inlays
  • Chapter 7. Virtual Pages
  • Chapter 8. Workflow
Principle Four: Provide an Invitation
  • Chapter 9. Static Invitations
  • Chapter 10. Interactive Invitations
Principle Five: Use Transitions
  • Chapter 11. Transition Patterns
  • Chapter 12. Purpose of Transitions
Principle Six: React Immediately
  • Chapter 13. Lookup
  • Chapter 14. Status
Appendix: Design Patterns

I have finished the first draft of the book and am now working my way back through the book. Hopefully it will start technical reviews in a couple of weeks. No definite word on when the book will be on the bookshelf -- but I will update as we nail down that date.

I am also setting up a companion site, http://designingwebinterfaces.com. Currently this is just parked with a generic placeholder.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't wait to get. Seems very interesting. If you need a beta reader, I'm up for it.

eribosot said...

Beta reader: here. I'm a tech writer for a company that builds big B2B apps with rich browser-based interfaces, and I would love to edit (not to mention read!) your book.

Jose said...

Hi!
Just another volunteer for a beta reader here.

Thanks,
jb

Brett Terry said...

Would be willing to be a technical reviewer. 13 Years of web/app development + UI (since NCSA in fact), Tufte-esque O'Reilly book houn and Current Associate Editor of Computer Music Journal (MIT Press)
-brett

Unknown said...

I'd be happy to review it for you - I'm in the middle of a whole RIA design at the moment and would love to put it to the test.

Bernard said...

Any volunteer as a technical reader. I've done this a lot for Addison-Wesley and Manning and I'm a software architect who focuses on UX and UI.

Andre Charland said...

hey Bill! congrats let me know if you need a reviewer! cheers.