UI is Communication: How to Design Intuitive, User Centered Interfaces by Focusing on Effective Communication

by Everett N. McKay

User interface design is a challenging, multi disciplinary activity that requires understanding a wide range of concepts and techniques that are often subjective and even conflicting. Imagine how much it would help if there were a single perspective that you could use to simplify these complex issues down to a small set of objective principles. In UI is Communication , Everett McKay explains how to design intuitive user interfaces by focusing on effective human communication. A user interface is ultimately a conversation between users and technology. Well designed user interfaces use the language of UI to communicate to users efficiently and naturally. They also recognize that there is an emotional human being at the other end of the interaction, so good user interfaces strive to make an emotional connection. Applying what you learn from UI is Communication will remove much of the mystic, subjectiveness, and complexity from user interface design, and help you make better design decisions with confidence. It’s the perfect introduction to user interface design.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Software, Art Design, Communication, Website Design, Web

378 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Everett McKay is Principal of UX Design Edge and a UX design trainer and consultant with global clientele. Everett’s specialty is finding practical, intuitive, simple, highly usable solutions quickly for web, mobile, and desktop applications. Everett has over 30 years’ experience in user interface design and has delivered UX design workshops to an international audience that includes Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa.

Everett is author of "Intuitive Design: Eight Steps to an Intuitive Design", the definitive guide to designing intuitive interactions, and "UI Is Communication: How to Design Intuitive, User Centered Interfaces by Focusing on Effective Communication", a groundbreaking approach to UI design using human communication-based principles and techniques. While at Microsoft, Everett wrote the Windows UX Guidelines for Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Everett holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science from MIT.

Reviews

[Emanuel Serbanoiu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to any designer that wants to understand and explore a slightly different approach to the design process and to design thinking.

This book helped me see things from a different perspective than the ones I've been seeing things from until now and because of that I now have a better understanding of some of the design concepts I thought I knew all about.

The biggest takeaways for me stemmed from the way the author articulated some aspects of the metagame of design. The thinking, the process, the collaboration.

I also found myself learning a lot from the small notes and comments. Some examples:
- You should concentrate on user similarities rather than differences.
- Users are greatly motivated by value. That's why the value proposition needs to be spotless!
- I now have this classification of UI. Classical and Modern.
- The concept of "icon label". I always knew their purpose in that scenario but I never encountered the phrase before.
- It's good practice to have an explicit verb near the beginning of a label.
- What to do when you plateau. Explore a simple design, an automatic one, an innovative one, etc.
(and many more)

[Thibault Drevon-Barbecot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever wondered as a developer if you know how to properly design UIs?

I thought I wasn't too bad at it but I wanted to know more so I bought this book.
Turns out there was a lot I didn't know (John Snow) and thanks to Mr McKay here, I have started to see the light!

This book is great. It guides you through the theory, the tools and the method so that you know what, how and why you are doing what you are doing. It is very easy to read, sprinkled with bad UI examples both eloquent and fun. The book itself is also "designed" for users: the important parts are in bold and you can easily skip what you are not interested in.

While the first chapters give you a good understanding of what UI principles and components are, the last two chapters are priceless: they give you a detailed walkthrough of how to tackle design challenges. I will keep this book nearby the next time I have to create a new UI from scratch and I am confident I can make it a hit!

Congratulations to Everett McKay!

[Tugrul Yuksel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book offers a very good perspective in terms of how to approach designing interactions. The thing I have liked was that there are descriptions of different processes that address some real-world conditions.

[Smaranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely brilliant and extremenly concrete. If you only want to get one book on GUI design, this one should be it.

[Tawfeeq Amro · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the most best books in UI, that tell you about how the best UI looks.

[KMT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seeing UI as a communication between a product and its users is a very valuable way to look at design challenges and it makes a lot of sense. The first part of the book revolves about the principles for communication, interaction, and visual design and contains a lot of useful information, but you might already be aware of most of it depending on your area of expertise. For me the real meat of the book was the later chapter about the communication-driven design process that packs a lot of practical ideas for developing new products or features in a more efficient way. Overall very easy to read, with a light-hearted tone.

[Eduardo Xavier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most software developers at any level will find this book usefull as the author talks about usability at our level and language. Everett can even antecipate design thouths and solution (from the programming level I mean). Funny. The last to chapters are really helpfull. Talks about put comunication first.
UX can be for developers too and this a good reference.

[Tiger Abrodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a beautiful book, especially the summary in the last chapter, that is just pure gold, with pure, I really mean it.

A must-have book for anyone who works on a certain product, whether mobile or web applications.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thorough but dry.

[Asier Marqués · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunque el autor asocia a un programador como un ser incapaz de diseñar con visión de UX, el libro está bastante bien

[Finlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just framing the UI, and the design process, as a conversation suddenly makes so many things obvious and easier. I couldn't articulate before why certain UIs really frustrated me, but they were conversations with annoying, pedantic, forgetful people.