Overview

Synopsis

In "The Humane Interface", Jef Raskin introduces readers to the fundamentals of interfaces and usability, highlights the faults in current interfaces, and outlines ideas that frame new approaches to design. Aimed at designers, programmers, managers, consumers, computer science and cognitive psychology students, and researchers, you are likely to view interfaces quite differently after reading this book.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Importance of Fundamentals
Chapter 1. Background
Chapter 2. Cognetics and the Locus of Attention
Chapter 3. Meanings, Modes, Monotony, and Myths
Chapter 4. Quantification
Chapter 5. Unification
Chapter 6. Navigation and Other Aspects of Humane Interfaces
Chapter 7. Interface Issues Outside the User Interface
Chapter 8. Conclusion
Appendix A: The One-Button Mouse History
Appendix B: SwyftCard Interface Theory of Operation

Praises

"The Humane Interface" contains a wealth of information. Examples include transparent error messages, incremental searches, and habituation (habit formation). In chapter 4, Raskin presents the especially useful GOMS (goals, objects, methods, and selection rules) model which he claims to be "one of the best quantitatives analyses of interface design". (p 72)

Criticisms

The material was enlightening, but only after a discouragingly slow start. For such an important subject, I'm disappointed Raskin didn't choose to communicate more effectively with common language. While I would still recommmend the book to potential readers, you might consider having a dictionary handy, unless your vocabulary includes such wonders as:

euphony, reify, pallid, solipsism, lacunae, locus, parlance, salient, ameliorated, naiveté, pejorative, dissonance, burgeoning, repertory, equanimity, portmanteau, armamentarium, bifurcated, obeisance, excremental (incorrectly paired with "incremental"; joke?), inscrutable, prosaic, behooves, cogent, flummox, and boustrophedonic.

Subscribers to the Word of the Day mailing list won't find these inventions: cognetics, dysclicksia, and quasimodal.

I was hoping to see Jef Raskin's "The Humane Environment" in action, but it requires MacOS X and I couldn't find screenshots, in lieu.

Final Analysis

I highly recommend "The Humane Interface", particularly to designers and programmers, in increasing one's understanding of the situations where a user interface/style guidelines are contrary to building more humane interfaces.

Copyright

Copyright © 2003 Anthon Pang.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".