Rating: 
Summary: A waste of time and money
Review: Usability Engineering (UE) is my profession, therefore I was interested in this book. After reading about half of it, I can only say it is a waste of time and money. The author just seems to be in love with his own ideas (which are by no means new- most of his stuff is old wine in a new barrel) but doesn't realy touch the essentials of UE. It is too simple to blame everything on the developpers.For those really interested in UE stay away from this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Tought medicine for most software developers
Review: When Alan Cooper wrote the first edition of About Face in 1997, the software industry was in the midst of its biggest change ever. Just about every new user interface was being created in the context of a Web browser. Cooper was the leading advocate to persuade software developers, graphic artists, usability designers, and interaction designers to avoid bringing the mistakes that got baked into desktop application software developing into Web development. His impact has been profound, but not very easy for most software developers. Key to this book is to understand that it challenges software developers to consider a user's goals first. And the book means "a user", not all of the users, but a single user. I've been to Alan's presentations and you can see the software developers in the audience squirm in their seats. "Don't I have to build my software to work for the largest group of users?" they ask. Alan's book says "No. Instead, build for a single user, and make sure your work accomplishes their one goal." About Face might be better titled "User Goal Oriented Software Development." The book's focus on "interaction design," as opposed to user interface design, matches the key theme of user goal oriented development. For example, when my printer runs out of ink a dialog box appears on my computer asking for me to put more ink into the printer and then click one of the following buttons: Finish and Continue. As the user, my goal is to Finish, but the software wants me to put more ink in the printer and then to Continue. Interaction Design addresses this problem, where user interface design would more likely tell the software developer where to place the buttons in the dialog box. Interaction design keeps the focus on user goals. I loved the original book, and find the new release to be refreshing. -Frank Cohen, www.pushtotest.com
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