Reviews (6)

a clean introducion
This is a very clean and readable book introducing Gnome/Gtk2/GLib2 application developpement and can be also used for understanding GLib2C utilities (strings, hashes, arrays, lists, trees...) and Gtk2 (treeview wigets, etc..). It also adds the Gconf stuff (an api for storing your app's configuration).
Does What It Sets Out To Do
This is a pretty heavy duty programming book. The opening words say you should have, "Firm Programming Experience in C, including pointers, dynamically allocated data structures, and pointers to functions, C macros and the C preprocessor, fundamental understanding of Unix: processes, libraries, search paths, and so on."
Good book
As the author already states in the introduction the book doesn't cover all the aspects of gtk and gnome, because then the book would be over 1000 pages, but with what it covers it covers very well and you can have a great start with gnome programming.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Graphics - General    3. Computer programming    4. Computer software    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Development    8. Graphical user interfaces (Com    9. Graphical user interfaces (Computer systems)    10. Operating Systems - Linux    11. Programming - General    12. User Interfaces    13. Computers / Languages / Programming    14. Computers / Operating Systems / Linux    15. Computers / Programming / General    16. Unix, Unix Linux & Unix TCL/TK    17. gnome, gnome 2   

Reviews (3)

disappointed in Amazon....
I'm pretty disappointed in Amazon, actually, as the book I received was the same in title & author, but the cover of my photo was very different than the one pictured on Amazon. Note: I didn't buy the book from an individual seller, I bought it new directly from Amazon. Amazon really needs to make an effort to update their photo library whenever a book cover changes. Instead of a purple book, I received a book with a light brown front cover.... Very disappointed.

Awesome
This book is clear and concise.Though the comparison between the Micro/Mini/Mainframes are a about 10 years out of date, the actual target material is right on.This book is organized in such a way as to be apowerful learning tool as well as a awesome reference.I couldn't havehoped for anything better.

A great beginner's source for TSO.
Doug Lowe does a great job with this easy to read text on MVS / TSO.Get this book if you need to jump right into MVS.Plenty of examples and real world analogies make this book a must have for your reference library. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Internet General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. IBM MVS    5. ISPF dialog manager    6. Operating Systems - General    7. Programming - General    8. Programming Languages - General    9. Reference - General    10. Time-Sharing Computer Systems    11. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Reviews (7)

Needs reconstruction, but a good book
Let me begin by saying that years back I won an international award for something or other to do with contributions to ergonomics - the design of a computer system in fact. I looked at this book as a possible text for an undergraduate course I teach.This is a good book, despite the reviews, if you have the time the read it. It is thorough at the theoretical end and pretty damn thorough at that. If you want to know the history of HCI, recent and possible developments, this is a good book - but it is just too long for most undergrads and this is the main problem. Most undergrads believe that HCI is just pure waffle and in many cases that is unarguable - it takes the likes of Jef Raskin to restore some intellectual credibility to the area.
Difficult to read
I'm a CS student with 7 years of IT experience. This book is compulsory for my course so I have no choice but to read it. I would rate this book among worst IT books ever. Although, some ideas suppose to be useful, but the language and lack of illustrations make them dull and unclear. Moreover, it has unreasonable complicity to describe a simple idea or situation, definitely confusing readers. It's kind of funny that one of the main purpose of this book is to teach you to design a good and understandable interface, but in opposite, it has a quite bad interface itself.

Worst HCI textbook ever
The audience of this book are supposedly to be undergraduate students taking user interface design or usability analysis classes. However, this book lacks the insights and conceptual depth commonly required by a college level textbook. This book simply uses too much pages to describe common senses without covering the real non-trival HCI knowlege people accumulated in the past thirty years. I feel this book might be ideal for high-school students as HCI readings, it's definately not for undergradates, researchers or professionals who want to impove their own skills in user-centered design. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - General Information    4. Human-computer interaction    5. Interactive & Multimedia    6. User Interfaces    7. Computers / User Interfaces   

Editorial Review

The writers of Read more

Reviews (9)

disappointment
i wrote my diploma thesis about interface design and this was the worst book i have read. the authors repeat themself again and again and again. to less info, too much blahblah. for me, this book was nearly useless (and asi live in europe i paid lots of money for it!). sorry, but i'm reallyupset.btw. the best book i have read was theo mandels elements of userinterface design!

Publisher misleads on contents of CD (?) - text is just fine
The authors write a nice, although somewhat expensive alternative to Cooper's "About Face," Howlett's "Visual Interface Design," and Mullet's "Designing Visual Interfaces," etc. However, the contents of the CD do not match the statements made on thecover of the book, nor the text within the book. For example, despite whatthe publisher states, I found no pdf files on the CD. I suspect that theyare shipping different versions (?) of the CD with the same book. I calledthe publisher, they seem to deny this, or maybe they are oblivious to it.Maybe the CD is nothing special (as another reader, Jarrett, December 15,suggests). Oh well.

good intro and guidelines (know-it-talls will profit)
Many GUI books are primarily about design, and are full of profound but essentially useless prescriptions such as "Use space creatively" or "Your design should be balanced, but hey, asymmetry can be cool, too." This book, in contrast, is primarily about GUI construction. The first part is about the mechanics of designing an interface: requirements gathering, prototyping, usability testing, and so on. The remainder is made up of checklists: Avoid horizontal scrolling; place pop-up windows in the center of the action; limit checkboxes to ten. The final chapter lists some best-practice guidelines with section headings like "Who to Involve" and "What to Customize." ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Graphics    3. Computer Graphics - General    4. Computer software    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Development    8. Graphical user interfaces (Com    9. Graphical user interfaces (Computer systems)    10. Programming - Software Development    11. Programming Languages - General    12. User Interface    13. User Interfaces    14. Computer Communications & Networking    15. Computers / User Interfaces    16. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)    17. Systems analysis & design   

Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computers    4. General    5. Social Aspects - Human-Computer Interaction    6. User Interfaces    7. User interfaces (Computer syst    8. User interfaces (Computer systems)    9. Value analysis (Cost control)    10. Computers / Programming / Software Development    11. Microeconomics   

Reviews (6)

Very handy advice
I'm a professional usability analyst, and I got some really useful tips when I opened up my copy of this book recently.More than ever its clear to me that Rubin is an experienced practitioner, with a sensible eye for what works.
An excellent book for budding usability folks
This book is a very handy reference guide for anyone who is just getting into the field of usability, and will need to conduct their own studies. It has many nifty tips for test planning and lots of information those just starting up in the field.

Rock-solid introduction to usability testing.
The author provides a supermarket of information from which you can choose your approach and method for performing usability testing. I had a little usability-testing experience when I bought this book. It quickly gave me some ways to streamline my process, plus some ways to shore up my process where it was weak. The most important thing this book gave me, however, was an understanding of when to use "quick and dirty" usability testing and when to perform a more thorough study. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers - General Information    3. Programming - General    4. Reference - General    5. Testing    6. User Interface    7. User interfaces (Computer syst    8. User interfaces (Computer systems)    9. Computers / Programming / General    10. General Theory of Computing    11. Writing & editing guides    12. Writing skills   

Reviews (25)

Complete GDI+ Refence....To the point
I had heard great things about this book, however I came accross bad reviews as well. People said it was a replication of the msdn documentation. The fact is that it is in some ways, but I think most books are. This book was to the point and explained the concepts of 2D Graphics in .NET. I used it to design a badging software and this book saved me the time to look up on msdn. However, if you are interested in 3D graphics/games or 2D games, do no use GDI+, use DirectX.

don't bother
There is nothing in this book that is not in the MSDN documentation (comes with Visual Studio, and is freely available at the MSDN site). In some cases, this book actually tells you less than the class library reference help. E.g., the example code regarding metafiles in MSDN has more detail than this book -- and that's not a lot! The examples in the book are just way too simplistic. In places, it seems plain that the help reference has basically been copied. Every time I check this book when I'm facing a real-world problem, the book is useless. There is nothing regarding best practices. It almost seems as though the author has not done serious work with GDI. Other books in this series from Addison are ok, but not this one.

Just a Rewrite of the Help File
Little more than a rewriting of the GDI+ help file with minimalist samples of the main functions. No discussion of why you might want to use particular functions and - despite what other reviewers have said - no serious discussion of real-life examples at all. (The closest thing to a useful program discussed is an - ugly - clone of Paint - which I would NOT consider a example to be proud of.) The pictures are all in black-and-white, which is ludicrous in a book that deals with colour graphics, even if colour versions are available for download. Don't even THINK about looking in here for techniques to use GDI+ to make Windows programming easier. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Graphics    3. Computer Graphics - General    4. Computers    5. Computers - Languages / Programming    6. Programming - General    7. Programming Languages - General    8. User Interface    9. User Interfaces    10. User interfaces (Computer syst    11. User interfaces (Computer systems)    12. Computer graphics software    13. Computers / Programming Languages / General    14. Programming languages   

Editorial Review

Because it's very popular among Internet service providers(ISPs), FreeBSD is likely the Unix flavor you work with when you Telnetinto the server that hosts a Web site. For that reason, it's worthhaving Read more

Reviews (26)

Fantastic!!!
This book is wonderful for the beginner who already knows about the ins and outs of computers. I installed freeBSD and was so impressed that I bought this book.It has already been an asset and I have learned a ton about this operating system and I am only in Chapter 4!
If you're new to FreeBSD, you will like it.
This book isn't for me.
I think that is a good book
I preorder this book, and waited by 2 months until it was published, but FreeBSD 6 really was a good choice. It is well wrote, but for my is necessary a better chapter reference, because I used it like a reference book and some time I need to look in the entire book to find a specific topic. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computer Operating Systems    3. Computers    4. Computers - Operating Systems    5. Free computer software    6. Internet - World Wide Web    7. Operating Systems - General    8. Operating systems (Computers)    9. Computers / Operating Systems / General    10. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Reviews (2)

Horribly Dry and Boring with Little to Recommend
Man, where do I start? I was actually looking forward to a college class on designing easy-to-use computer applications. Boy did I not get what I was looking for, in large part due to this book. Very well organized
This book is a good reference in many points of the usability process - evaluation, design, and testing. The authors organize chapters in a very structured way that the content is very digestible. At 448 pages, the book isn't meant to be read in a single session, but again, it's a great reference.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Engineering    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. Human-Computer Interaction    6. Social Aspects - Human-Computer Interaction    7. User Interface    8. User Interfaces    9. Virtual Reality    10. Computers / Programming / Software Development   

Reviews (1)

What would "Bob" do?
When creating a web site, it's very easy to fall into the trap of designing it for yourself.Unfortunately, you're not the typical user in most cases, nor are you the intended audience.You can avoid this problem with the use of "personas".The subject is covered very well in this book.
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Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books: Web Programming    3. Computers    4. Design    5. Internet - Web Site Design    6. Web sites    7. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    8. Internet   

Reviews (4)

Great book for designers/developers
When i first got this book, I didn't really know what to expect.I didn't know if it was going to be a design book or an animation book for interfaces.I guess what I eventually ended up getting was a little bit of both.
I bought it and finally i was enlightened.
I may be exagerating, but from the moment i bought this book i realized that the "advanced" part was easy for everyone to follow and put into good use.
Broad Yet Applicable
AdvancED Flash Interface Design is the latest installment from Friends of ED. Incidentally, while reading an interview with Chris Mills, I recently learned that the ED in the title is capitalized for a reason. "Friends of Every Designer" is what the company name stands for. Read blogs folks, you'll have many serendipitous moments. Anyway, this book was very practical, filled with an enormous amount of information, all of which is very applicable on a day to day basis. This quote from Chris' blog sums it up quite nicely...
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Graphics - Flash    3. Computer Graphics - Game Programming    4. Computer animation    5. Computers    6. Computers - Other Applications    7. Design    8. Internet - Web Site Design    9. User Interfaces    10. Web sites    11. Internet   

Editorial Review

If the phrase "planned community" makes you think of terrible homogenoussuburbs, take another look at the Internet. Although there are unplanned aspectsand emergent behaviors, every detail for the most part has been designed bypeople who thought that they knew what they were doing. Might we do better?Human-computer interactions expert Jenny Preece takes apart our preconceptionsand suggests new ways to improve our virtual realities in Read more

Reviews (14)

One star is too much
Another reviewer has written `online communities for dummies'. This Sociology of the Internet
I thought this book was GREAT!Sure, it's dated, but every book about the Internet dates quickly. That's because the Internet is growing and changing faster than the book publishing business can publish a book. Online Communities for Dummies
This book appears to be written for those who are ignorant about online communities (and I can't imagine why such a person would pick up this book).I found no insights in this book that would not be obvious to an experienced user/member of online communities.I was recently given a new task at work to manage an online community of practice (for project managers) at my global company, and I was hoping that this book would offer some new insights and ideas.It was a complete disappointment.I found much better information in an article from the Harvard Business Review and from the IBM website. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer - Internet    2. Computer Books And Software    3. Computer Networks    4. Computers    5. Internet    6. Internet - General    7. Internet - Web Site Design    8. Interpersonal communication    9. Networking - General    10. Social Aspects - General    11. Social Interaction    12. Social aspects    13. Sociology - General    14. Computers / Online Services / General    15. World Wide Web (WWW)   

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Graphics - General    3. Computers    4. Computers - General Information    5. Human-Computer Interaction    6. Interactive & Multimedia    7. Social Aspects - Human-Computer Interaction    8. User Interface    9. User Interfaces    10. Virtual Reality    11. Computers / Computer Science    12. Digital Media    13. Digital special effects.   

Reviews (8)

Thorough and practical
This book covers quality assurance of web systems beyond merely testing. It offers practical insight for designers, developers, project managers and quality assurance team members. A big bonus is the appendix which details and compares automated test tools.

A must-have for any web systems tester
This book is excellent for any web systems tester. It covers all areas of functional and non-functional testing related to the Web. Excellent book on various quality topics
This book was a joy to read. It gives a great overview of quality issues within "Web systems" - meaning Web applications and architectures. The book balances a too-specific look with a too-general look and succeeds quite well in a balanced treatment that will make the whole worth the attention of any quality assurance or quality tester professional in the Information Technology industry.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. E-Commerce - General    5. Internet - General    6. Programming - Software Development    7. Quality control    8. Web site development    9. Web sites    10. Computers / Internet / Web Site Design    11. Data security & data encryption    12. World Wide Web (WWW)    13. Software Testing   

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - General Information    4. Programming - Systems Analysis & Design    5. Social Aspects - Human-Computer Interaction    6. System analysis    7. System design    8. User Interfaces    9. Computers / Programming / Software Development    10. Industrial / Commercial Art & Design   

Reviews (7)

Excellent book
This book is very well written, content-rich and provides a plethora of examples that I can use on the job immediately. What more can a software developer ask for? I would give it 10 stars if the option was available.

Is it just me???
Or do other people think there is a need for creativity in user interface design? This book, while very helpful in providing a set of procedures to follow when evaluating users and their particular needs, leaves out the very important concept of the ART of user interface design. I see plenty of recommends for Tufte's trilogy of user oriented design books and for the book "Don't Make Me Think". These books are much more readable, and none of them are nearly so formulaic in their approach to user interface design.
My Bible
I have never written a review before, but I am so impressed with this book - it is indispensable. I particularly like the way the information is presented - very readable. Also valuable are the sections that address shortcuts and alternatives for applying techniques in the real world. I often am called to get involved during and after development and have to adapt "perfect world" techniques into very short cycles. This is a must have for people in our profession. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Engineering    3. Computer Science    4. Computer software    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Development    8. Programming - Software Development    9. Software Development    10. User Interface    11. User Interfaces    12. User interfaces (Computer syst    13. User interfaces (Computer systems)    14. Computers / Programming / Software Development    15. Human-computer interaction    16. Software engineering   

Reviews (3)

Somewhat dated but overall extremely useful
If you've gotten this far without actually looking at the summary information about this tome above, please note that this book contains nearly 1,000 pages. This book is a collection of research papers (of the sort you'd find published in books on HCI or from conferences of the ACM SIGCHI committee) organized into chapters by some shared topic (i.e. human factors, hypertext, speed/language/audition). Each chapter is preceded by a summary of the papers contained therein along with often useful bibliographic citation of related works, all grounded in their utility toward the field of HCI by the editors. Another Great Morgan Kaufmann Value
This second edition of a collection of great papers on human-computerinteraction (HCI) is a different snapshot of the field -- an excellentintroduction.In addition to the high quality papers, the text writter bthe editors, all highly regarded in the field, add a lot to the reader'sunderstanding.Recommended for students (required for all grad students inHCI), researchers, and for practitioners looking for something deeper thanguidelines.

prototype
3 type of prototype high low rapidRead more

Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence - General    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Science    4. Computers    5. Computers - General Information    6. Human-Computer Interaction    7. System design    8. User Interfaces    9. Computers / Computer Science   

Editorial Review

An excellent introduction to the design theories involved in the creation of user interfaces. Instead of the usual examples and pictures of computer screens and application menus, Mullet approaches the concept of UI from its "outside world" roots. With examples ranging from street signs to corporate logos to the map of the London Underground, each section attacks the issues of interface design from the ground up, appealing first to the eye and then to the mind. Task menus are compared with concert programs and street signs are equated with icons.Read more

Reviews (24)

Not for 2006
I wish I had spent time in the reviews section and noticed the commentary about the horrible graphics in this book!!
Awful edition of what was a wonderful book
I originally stumbled upon this book about 10 years ago (probably the first edition, had a blackish cover) while skimming through the "user intreface" shelf at my college library. To be honest I picked it up just because of the quality of the edition: "it looked cool".
Very Informative, Poorly Designed
First off, it's almost 2006 and this book was written in 1994 (with the Mac OS6 screenshots to prove it). Most of the principles discussed in the book are timeless, but still, graphical interfaces have improved GREATLY since this book was originally written...
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Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Desktop Publishing    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computer Graphics    4. Computer Graphics - General    5. Computers - Desktop Publishing    6. Data Processing - General    7. Desktop Publishing - General    8. Graphical user interfaces (Com    9. Graphical user interfaces (Computer systems)    10. User Interface    11. Computer graphics software    12. Computers / User Interfaces    13. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)    14. Software engineering   

Editorial Review

"The book that explains why you really hate computers."Read more

Reviews (53)

Outdated, but interesting.
An interesting read, although many of his examples seem quite outdated. Most of the examples of bad user interfaces come from either Microsoft Windows, or a very old version of Microsoft Word running on a Mac. Most of his examples of good use interfaces come from the ancient Canon Cat computer, or occasionally from the original Macintosh project.
Excellent book on HCI
The level of detail in this book was appropriate and helpful for the field, while not overly boring and technical. Real-world examples given, which are still useful despite the fast development of new systems. Some improvements visible in New Operating Systems, which gives the suggestions validity in the industry.

Interesting, but probably not what you're looking for
The author brings up some interesting issues, and has some very interesting ideas about user interface design.At the very least, it gets you questioning some practices that may have seemed beyond questioning.The author's credibility vanished for me when he suggested that file names and directory structures should be done away with in favour of full text searches because file names are just to hard to remember!That said, there are some good ideas, particularly in chapter 6. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Human-Computer Interaction    5. Programming - Systems Analysis & Design    6. User Interface    7. User Interfaces    8. User interfaces (Computer syst    9. User interfaces (Computer systems)    10. Virtual Reality    11. Computers / User Interfaces    12. Mathematical theory of computation   

Reviews (3)

Wanna know about 3D UI?
If you are interested in knowing 3D UI, you should buy this book. It covers almost every technologies designed or developed in recent years. This book consists of about 13 chapters. In each chapter, it explained the