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Monday, December 22, 2003

Well, three things have happened since the last update an hour or so ago. I must be starting to come across as bored and narssisistic (s*4?) to be updating this all the time with such boring shit. But, oh well. Your fault if you read it.


User Interface Design For Programmers by Joel Spolesky
I finished The Spolsky book "User Interface Design for Programmers." Now, everyone knows I'm NOT a programmer, but this is was recommended to me as a top quality book on UI Design. This this is a topic that is pretty relevant to my continuing to draw water in this town, I picked it up, on BillG's dime. Plus, I can't really read a novel at work without looking lazy but I CAN read a book like this one, and just seem dedicated. A real go-getter. Upwardly moblie. Cheap corporate whore.

UID for Programmers is a B+ book. JS is a clever writer with a few good insights into how UI should be. He is able to offer several good rules-of-thumb for designing UI. The majority of his examples & focus is on (specifically) Windows GUI. There are good gems here, which build mostly on Donald Norman's concept of "Affordances" from his A+ book, "The Design of Everyday Things." Bottom line on the UID book is, you would probably get as much or more out of saving $25 and just spending 2 hours reading through everything on www.joelonsoftware.com where most of this material is covered anyway.

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Next work books on tap: "Peopleware" by Tom DeMarco & "Creating Emotion in Games" by David Freeman. Stay tuned here for this exciting look into the life of a guy who really isn't as dull as this blog probably makes him seem.

Which reminds me, I just skimmed the blog of a bona-fide hipster. It was a little depressing. Shit. I can overly not care about what I wear, shave my head over the bathroom sink, get high everyday, listen to Explosions In the Sky, and still not be hip-enough to keep up with the joneses. Fuck. (Hehee.)