About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design

Dear Reader,

In the eight years since this book was first published, the ideas that seemed do radical at first have become standard models across the industry. Many practicioners have adopted them and seen dramatic improvements in their products.

This book would not have been possible without the commitment of the many organizations over the past decade that hired Cooper, my design consulting company. They demonstrated a great measure of self-confidence to break from the pack.

By the same token, the many brilliant and talented people who have worked at Cooper have pushed the limits of my original thinking far beyond where I started. They have put their professional reputations on the line to prove that there is a higher standard and better ways to achieve it.

In this significantly revised and expanded edition of the book, Robert Reimann and I have rewritten and reorganized every page. Together we have:

• Updated examples to reflect the current state of the art, and included more examples from Cooper design solutions
• Included references to recent technology and industry developments
• Added an entirely new section covering Cooper's Goal-Directed Design methods such as personas, goals, and scenarios in detail
• Added new chapters on visual design, as well as interaction design issues for embedded systems and the Web
• Added a bibliography of design reference sources

Thanks for joining me in the pursuit of better software, happier programmers and designers, more successful businesses, and extremely satisfied users.

Sincerely,

Alan Cooper

Founder & Chairman of the Board

Cooper

"About Face 2.0 is one of the very rare design books that's fun to read, even though it rocks fundamental beliefs and packs the page with useful information. It's a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what the software design process should be (but usually isn't). The perspective is unique: intellectually rigorous enough for academics while remaining focused on helping practitioners. I'd recommend this book to anybody in the business."

– Harley Manning, Research Director, Forrester Research

"About Face", aimed at software developers, proposes the creation of a new profession of software design.

"The following description is for the second edition of About Face. The 3rd Edtion, About Face 3 (ISBN 0470084111), is now available."

First published seven years ago-just before the World Wide Web exploded into dominance in the software world-About Face rapidly became a bestseller. While the ideas and principles in the original book remain as relevant as ever, the examples in About Face 2.0 are updated to reflect the evolution of the Web.

Interaction Design professionals are constantly seeking to ensure that software and software-enabled products are developed with the end-user's goals in mind, that is, to make them more powerful and enjoyable for people who use them. About Face 2.0 ensures that these objectives are met with the utmost ease and efficiency.

Alan Cooper (Palo Alto, CA) has spent a decade making high-tech products easier to use and less expensive to build-a practice known as "Interaction Design." Cooper is now the leader in this growing field. Mr. Cooper is also the author of two bestselling books that are widely considered indispensable texts. About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design, intro-duced the first comprehensive set of practical design principles. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum explains how talented people and companies continually create aggravating high-tech products that fail to meet customer expectations.

Robert Reimann has spent the past 15 years pushing the boundaries of digital products as a designer, writer, lecturer, and consultant. He has led dozens of interaction design projects in domains including e-commerce, portals, desktop productivity, authoring environments, medical and scientific instrumentation, wireless, and handheld devices for startups and Fortune 500 clients alike. Joining Cooper in 1996, Reimann led the development and refinement of many goal-directed design methods described in About Face 2.0. He has lectured on these methods at major universities and to international industry audiences. He is a member of the advisory board of the UC Berkeley Institute of Design.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 515-518) and index.

For over 30 years Alan Cooperhas 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 Reimannled 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 Croninis 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.