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About WDFSWDFS in a nutshellBest and Worst: BestBest and Worst: WorstDesign diaryAbout ScratchmediaWeb Design from Scratch LIVE
Web Doctor recommends these books by Alan Cooper
The Inmates are Running the Asylum
In "The Inmates are Running the Asylum", Alan Cooper explains why our development processes so often make terrible software, and makes a powerful business case for Goal-Directed Interaction Design.
This book fundamentally changed the way I think and work.
About Face 2.0
"About Face 2.0" is Alan's big hands-on manual.
Fundamentally rewritten from the first edition, this book goes into more detail about the techniques of Goal-Directed design, including personas.
Includes the most thorough treatment of practical approaches to creating effective web and software interfaces.
WDFS in a nutshell
Web design from Scratch is simple, straightforward and it works!
Step-by-step design process
- Work out your goals: for the site, and your users - and Don't forget them
- Decide what needs to happen for those goals to be achieved
- Describe the dialogue between site and user
- Describe and prioritise the features, functions and content that comprise the dialogue
- Organise your features, functions and content in a meaningful way
- Create a visual layout that's consistent with your information architecture, is easy to interpret, and prioritises the right elements
- Arrange your elements using the visual tools: contrast, colour, containment, alignment, rhythm, imagery, and text so that your page is clear (straightforward to scan, read, and use successfully)
Web Doctor's Design Philosophy
Spend more time thinking up-front
- Think more about my users goals, and how I can help achieve them
- Think more about my message: what to say that will create the right impression and achieve my goals
- Think up creative ideas for solving these problems, before turning to the computer
Be highly disciplined with UI layout and controls
- Collect examples of simple, strong interface elements that work
- Continually observe the web environment to be aware of the strongest conventions that will be my shortcuts to success
- Use conventions unless there's a really good argument not to
- There are good reasons why most conventions have become conventions - they will save me and my users time
Spend the time saved optimising the product
- Revise and edit the copy
- Test my work on real people to make sure it hits the mark
- Produce polished imagery
Build for the future
- Maintain a toolkit of tried and tested graphics and HTML/CSS assets, which I can be confident will do the job (designing from scratch doesn't mean reinventing the wheel!)
2005
