Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design

by Robert Hoekman Jr.

Book Overview

Designing the Obviousbelongs in the toolbox of every person charged with the design and development of Web-based software, from the CEO to the programming team. Designing the Obvious explores the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 032145345X
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: New Riders Pub
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Advice so obvious you never would have thought of it

The danger in reading a book that tells you to do obvious things is that you may find yourself thinking that since you could have thought of each piece of advice on your own, you would have. Alas, unless you have the depth of experience that someone like Robert Hoekman has acquired by working on dozens of projects, chances are there is at least one obvious thing in this book that you have missed in your last project. If you're like me there is probably considerably more than one thing. Hoekman lays out the basic principles of web application design clearly and succinctly. He starts by describing some of the practices that designers should adopt in order to understand how their users actually behave and what they really need. These practices are meant to cure readers of the habit of asking users what they want, which frequently results in honest but inaccurate answers. Hoekman's tools of choice for generating understanding are various forms of shadowing users while they do the tasks your application will perform, and his preferred method of documentation is the use case. No one who has worked in software development for any period of time will be surprised at the use case rules he lays out, but the example he gives is a rare glimpse into how the mind of an expert polishes a basic use case into something truly professional. He next tackles the question of what features to put into your design and which to leave out. Here Hoekman is firmly in the minimalist camp exemplified by 37 Signals. He advocates ruthlessly stripping out "nice to have" features, and simplifying the rest. Although I had previously read much the same argument in "Getting Real", ([...]) once again I found that the example at the end of the chapter gave greater practical insight into how to actually select features to remove. I found the chapter titled "Support the User's Mental Model" to be the most valuable in the book. As someone who is more often on the project management than the implementation side of web applications, I have often had an engineer propose a feature or refinement that makes perfect logical sense, but for some reason doesn't feel right. After reading this chapter, all of those vague feelings snapped into focus for me. Engineers are so deeply immersed in how the application works, and the possibilities that are available, that they sometimes want to structure interactions in ways that reflect the logic of the code rather than the logic of the activity. Previously I had been attributing most of these errors to the desire to provide more options to the user. Being able to distinguish between the two should help me in approaching these proposals better in the future. The chapters on helping first time visitors become intermediate users quickly and on handling errors were also valuable, mostly because they focused on the introductory experience. There are dozens of books on design and interactions, but I have yet to see one that focuses exclusivel

Best collection and modern usability advice I've read yet

As the popularity of WordPress has grown I've learned many lessons about design and usability, often the hard way. I wish this book had been around 4 years ago when WP got started, because we could have avoided dozens of mistakes along the way. After I was about half-way through this book I ordered a copy for everyone in my company, even non-developers, because it concisely summarized so much of what I think we should do.

One of the best and most usable titles on User Experience Design

From 9 to 5 (well, a "little" after 5 most days), I am an Application Development Manager in my company. In my years doing this, I have read a lot of books on the topic of Web and User Experience Design. So far, only a handful stand out above "Designing the Obvious" by Robert Hoekman Jr. and even some of those, he takes his hat off to (such as the case of "Don't Make Me Think", for instance). Hoekman proposes the "unthinkable" for those entrenched into rusty web design practices, but when you step back and reconsider the experiences you've had, his framework makes perfect sense. Here are a couple of thoughts he brings to the table, to give you an idea: -Design an application that does one thing, and does it very well. For every additional feature, there is more to learn, more to tweak and configure, more to customize, more to read about in the help document, and more that can go wrong. -People (users) don't always make the right choices. They make comfortable choices... they make choices they know how to make. To deal with this, he supports Goal-Directed (also called Activity-Centered) Design, as opposed to Human-Centered Design. Web Design anathema? Violation of User Interface "basics"? Maybe it sounds so at first, but if you read through his arguments, you will find them very compelling and may end up (like myself) reconsidering some of your initial assumptions. One of the reasons why his proposal resonated so much with me is because throughout the book, Hoekman introduces concepts that are not familiar in the Web space, borrowing them from long-established best practices in manufacturing (where I worked the first four years of my professional life), such as: -Kaizen: improving things constantly, in little tiny ways that add up to gigantic results. -Poka-Yoke: software "devices" meant to prevent user errors from occurring. -Pareto (80/20 rule): Good, clean Web application design means that 80 percent of an application's usefulness comes from 20 percent of its features. For longtime professionals and newcomers into the field of User Experience Design, Hoekman's book has turned into an absolute must read.

Simply Amazing

I have been designing web sites and web applications for many years. I purchased over 100 books on web development and I have to say that "Designing the Obvious" is a breakthough book for web design and application development. Clearly and precisely, Robert Hoekman Jr., explains the how's and why's of proper web design. The book not only explains the concepts of common sense designs, but why they should be implemented. The reader is given examples of web sites both wrong and right, for comparison. The book is laid out in several chapters and covers every aspect of design, from simple registration screens, to complex content editing. The techniques represented show a clear method to allow you, the designer, to create the next application that can rival even the best web sites out there. Robert also introduces you to a set of tools that can assist you in creating the perfect web application. After reading about them, I registered for several of the free features and even upgraded one to the full pay version. (Thanks Robert!) Don't think this book is just for programmers. This book is also for web designers, whether graphic designers, Flash designers or otherwise. The book is well rounded and teaches many design from many perspectives. This book is a must for anyone who designs, writes, edits, critiques or reviews web sites. 5 stars is not enough.

Straight forward, concise and intelligent

Design should be obvious. It is a really simple concept actually; if you want to make something usable, make it as easy to use as a door or a light switch. However, the genius of this book is not only its ability to make that argument, but also to instill the knowledge necessary for those of us lacking a design sense to make a usable interface. In my personal opinion, every application designer and developer can benefit from the wealth of information and experience in this book. My company has adopted it as required reading for every one of our developers.