Design Books for Developers

Designing the Obvious

Designing the Obvious is a book I ran into at Books a Million a few months ago. Usually when I head out to bookstores I grab a handful of books and end up scanning over them for tips, maybe reading a few relevant chapters, then putting it back. Very rarely do I end up reading through the entire book at one sitting at the bookstore. That’s just what happened with Designing the Obvious. After reading through the entire book I put it back on the shelf as usual. On a second trip to the same bookstore later I ended up reviewing most the book, gleaming new shreds of information from each chapter. Rarely have I spent so much time on a book, better yet seen relevant bits a second time through. Eventually I ordered it from Amazon and have re-read most of it since then. If you want to check out a sample chapter from the book, it’s available for free on the authors website .

Designing the Moment

The author, Robert Hoekman, Jr. , also has a second book coming out just this week called Designing the Moment which seems to pickup with more concrete examples and run with them. _ Obvious_ was more general in what you want the user to think and what you want to convey in your app, while Moment seems to be more about analyzing actual examples. Anyone interested in creating kick-ass interfaces that people love to use should consider reading both of these. _ Moment_ comes out this week, so it’s a good time to grab one or both if it’s a topic you enjoy. Like Obvious , there’s a sample chapter on the authors website .