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Summary: A blast of fresh air - this book is a must read.
Review: Modes are bad, mm-kay? You shouldn't do modes.Seriously, The Humane Interface is a blast of fresh air for those tired of the relentless marketing-driven claims of "innovation" by the likes of Apple & Microsoft. Users as well as engineers and programmers are well advised to read this book cover to cover.
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Summary: Fascinating, wonderful book -- A MUST READ
Review: The book opens with a brief look at cognetics. Studying how the mind works, such as matters of attention and habituation, clarifies why many popular designs are often so COUNTERintuitive. Once you have that background, Raskin starts defining terms. Then, he provides formulas for analyzing interface efficiency. As valuable as usability testing can be, it's nice to add some objective measurements to the toolbox. The last half of the book looks at some popular current practices in software, and points out ways they violate the principles expressed in the first half. Some of his ideas are quite radical, but definitely thought-provoking. I wonder if anyone in the Open Source community would be interested in taking a crack at developing a new system based on these proposals. Raskin designed the Apple Macintosh and CanonCat systems, both of which are used as frequent examples. An appendix on why the Mac chose the one-button mouse is a must read for any Mac partisan (pro or con). Because the CanonCat is so obscure, I do wish he provided more information (especially pictures) on how it actually looked and worked. But that's a minor quibble. As someone new to the profession of UI Design, this book has proven invaluable. I'm already using his terminology to explain issues to developers. And I'm still ruminating over some of the other proposals in the last half of the book. If you've read last year's popular book "The Inmates Are Running The Asylum" by Cooper, you understand the problem exists. This is a good follow-up to start you on the road to fixing it.
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Summary: The origins of "The Humane Interface" -- and a puzzle.
Review: . I'd like to say a few words about my book's origins and to mention a little puzzle that I slipped in. "The Humane Interface" grew from my desire to understand why certain interface designs were successful and others were not. After creating the Macintosh project and solving hundreds of interface problems for companies around the world, I still could not fully explain how I knew what would work. To satisfy my own curiosity as well as explain it to others, I studied the literature of human cognitive performance and carefully observed users of the Web, computers, and information appliances. I learned about underlying, empirically-based principles that explained and predicted many details of human-machine interaction. Many of these were already in the literature, but had not been pulled together into a cogent whole. A few were newly invented. Understanding fundamental principles sheds light on and helps us improve present practices, and lets us avoid pitfalls we might not have noticed. Working from foundations -- instead of examples of current practice, as in most books on interface design -- leads us onto new, fruitful paths that we might otherwise not have explored. The converse is also true (and very revealing). "The Humane Interface" allows you to understand conclusively why so many present interfaces are so frustrating and annoying. The puzzle: Why is there a picture of the Hunchback of Notre Dame on page 55?
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Summary: Revenge On The Nerds
Review: If you have ever been annoyed or perplexed by your computer, you will love "The Humane Interface," by Jef Raskin, the Silicon-Valley iconoclast who created the Macintosh project at Apple. My first experience with computers came at a party in the mid-'70s when I was dragged into a four-way discussion over the question of how to get past an ogre who was guarding a cave entrance. I had no idea what my three nerdy companions were talking about with such amusement and I felt that they were secretly savoring my confusion. It turned out that they had a computer terminal in the bedroom that was hooked up to M.I.T. through something called the "Internet" and they were playing a game called "Zork." A few years later, these same guys and their nerdy brethren were designing the interfaces that you and I rely upon today and, I felt, they were still secretly savoring our confusion. As luck would have it, I was drawn into computers by way of the electronic games industry in the '80s. Whenever I complained about the way computers worked, I was driven back and put in my place by technical arguments that made me feel like a Neanderthal. Now I imagine that many of YOU have either been in the same place, or have just accepted -- as you might a bitter medicine --the aggravating complexity of computers as a "given." Well, with the publication of "The Humane Interface," our time has come. It is an easy and amusing read, but it is also a radical critique that just might shake up the computer industry. The attack on the sacred cows of GUI interface design is humorous but devastating, with plenty of supporting scientific data. Once he's definitively proven that the emperor has no clothes, Raskin offers commonsensical, and oftimes ingeniously simple solutions. I recommend "The Humane Interface" to casual computer users as well as professionals, since it will equip both with the right spells to overcome the ogre of GUI.
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Summary: A practical, insightful leap forward, a must-read
Review: I recommend this book wholeheartedly and not only for the marketplace that includes application designers and web page developers, but also for the many who may be curious about the fundamentals of human-computer interaction. The book succeeds in providing a basic education in interface design principles. For me, an editorial director in magazine publishing working with a growing web department, the book was fascinating and stimulating. I now recognize interface elements that work well, or that do not, much more ably. The book describes a set of elements that coalesce into a next-generation interface that could revolutionize the way people use computers. Jef does a brilliant job reducing quantification of interface activity to readily understandable terms. And for those who want a deeper, philosophic, scientific look, Jef very briefly delves into information theory to show how to evaluate the ultimate efficiency of drop down menus, error messages, and the like. Jef has done an enormous amount of research and credits countless pioneers and researchers. His colorful and interesting sidebars and eclectic appendices are interesting side trips. Jef's work is an eloquent, humble, and inspirational salute to current knowledge that awaits implementation. But it is also a primer for every web page developer, every editor working with web page developers, and every application or operating system designer out there. Offering many practical insights, this book lucidly pursues the humane where computers and human lives are becoming ever more entwined.
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Summary: Excellent text
Review: In a nutshell, this book should be on your shelf if you are an electronic media designer - whether you're designing Web sites or other types of interactive media. The book is well-written, and covers many critical topics in usable design. One thing to note: there isn't a whole lot of content in this book that is specifically geared towards applying principles of Usability to Web design; you'd need to use your imagination to apply some of the principles to this area. Nonetheless, I think that the book is well worth the price. It does a fine job of tying together a lot of otherwise abstract concepts from human factors psychology and human-computer interface study.
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Summary: Some good, some bad, much very annoying
Review: I do not know who edits books on interface design but all too often the books are more about "look at how great I am" than thoughtful insights. The beginning of the book offers some good interface guidelines and metrics but around chapter 5 it becomes more about Raskin's ideas than interface design itself. The most laughable is chapter 6-4-3 where he advocates the removal of usernames from login systems to rely simply on passwords. He obviously doesn't understand security and never talked to someone who did before publishing it. He contradicts himself in later chapters with points he makes in the beginning, but if you can look past his constant references to how great his systems are, there is good content in there.
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Summary: Some good, some bad, much very annoying
Review: I do not know who edits books on interface design but all too often the books are more about "look at how great I am" than thoughtful insights. The beginning of the book offers some good interface guidelines and metrics but around chapter 5 it becomes more about Raskin's ideas than interface design itself. The most laughable is chapter 6-4-3 where he advocates the removal of usernames from login systems to rely simply on passwords. He obviously doesn't understand security and never talked to someone who did before publishing it. He contradicts himself in later chapters with points he makes in the beginning, but if you can look past his constant references to how great his systems are, there is good content in there.
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Summary: Is what it says it is...
Review: At first, I was really disappointed with this book. The "thick" writing style hides the presentation of straightforward concepts in long paragraphs and dense text. Be prepared to mull through the page looking for italics. Additionally, the "God complex" attitude conveyed by Jef really should have been caught by an editor. The didactic tone is a real turn-off. And, as other reviewers have pointed out, there is little practical advice, beyond Jef's "this is what I did" anecdotes. After saying this, there are many valuable concepts presented in the book (for a list, see the table of contents). If the book goes to a second edition, an editor and a technical writer should be part of the writing team. This would make it more readable and referenceable; making it easier to recommend.
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Summary: Inspring but incomplete
Review: This is a book on user interface design by the father of the Macintosh and the information appliance.
Like most people I find computers frustrating to use. Raskin explains some of the reasons why this is, and also points to better ways of designing software for real people. But some of his ideas seem hard to apply to modern networked computers.
One of the most important ideas is that "An interface is humane if it is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties". Humans cannot remember what state or mode the software is in, interfaces should minimize distractions so we can focus on the task at hand.
Many of his ideas can be applied today, others require a redesign of human-computer interaction. His proposal to replace applications with commands is intriguing. The book doesn't quite show how that would work
Many of the ideas based on the Canon Cat and original Macintosh that Raskin implemented years ago. This seems to prove their feasibility, but it's hard to see how "leaping" would apply to modern networks and file systems.
I was saddened to learn that Jef Raskin passed away this week. It's exciting to learn though that his Raskin Center for Humane Interface has been funded to carry on his work.
The book has inspired me to explore the topic of humane design in more depth, and to try to apply these principles in my job as a software designer, and in my own projects.
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