Designing the Moment: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action

by Robert Hoekman Jr.

Provides design solutions, taken from real projects, that promote greater user interaction within Web sites.

Genres: Design, Website Design, Web, Software, Usability

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Robert Hoekman Jr is an American writer. He is the author of nine nonfiction books, and has served as an Arts & Culture journalist, magazine editor, and manuscript developer. He has published articles in Fast Company, Wired, Maxim, and many other outlets. His microfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in 50-Word Stories, Nanoism, Spelk, Genrepunk, and elsewhere. He holds an Advanced Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Pennsylvania, and teaches creative writing through the Stanford Continuing Studies Program. He lives with his dog in Richmond, Virginia.

Reviews

[PD Storage · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Mikal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Designing the Moment is like siting in a workshop with Hoekman watching him iterate through a series of micro-case studies. The results aren't breadth taking and in most cases the results aren't anything I would ship (though I am given the benefit of time as there has been years of news solutions developed).

But ultimately Hoekman lays out his approach and thought process in a way many practitioners would shy away from. The approachability of the low fidelity mockups shown also puts the focus on the thinking and the interaction design -- not on the quality of the mockup.

The detriment of this book is that Hoekman too readily takes the solution that comes to him as the optimal solution, or more specifically he doesn't distinguish the tradeoffs and compromises he made from a more optimal solution in a different context. For example he designs the "perfect blog" not through a rigorous meditation but based on things that were stated in a workshop. (Ahem "design by committee")

Because Designing the moment does step through the series of very important moments in the process of releasing a web application or web site. It, like Bokardo's Designing the Social Web will have a place near my work area. This book is more like a 3.5 star book than a 3 star-- but because it's less methodical in its approach to problems, I rounded down.

[Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a follow on book by the author of the popular “Designing the Obvious.” The author is a web designer who has started his own company. His advice seems to me to be very practical and valuable.

He starts with some basics on layout and design continuity to form a more positive impression. He presents some advice on what to do and not do when it comes to web site navigation. He talks about content patterns such as trigger words, making the text easy to scan, and labeling. He weighs in with his seasoned opinions on such popular GUI innovations as tag clouds, auto-completion, streaming video, advanced search criteria, paging through search results, syndication, and predictive market style rating systems.

He also gives advice on mitigating goal conversion problems such as detailed form entry abandonment and resistance to registration.

I get the feeling that he has a pet peeve about sites that make it easy to register yet hard to unregister as he devotes a whole chapter on letting them go.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book follows "Designing the Obvious", which is an introduction to Hoekman's philosophy on design. "Designing the Moment" takes more of a case study approach and nuts out many of the contemporary UI design issues.

It is not an encyclopedia or complete reference - you will need to go elsewhere for that. But it does get you in the groove (in a "teach a man to fish.." kind of way)

More than anything, I find Hoekmen's approach to web design just clicks for me. Reading a few pages is great "exercise for the mind", helping you limber up and get in the right mindset when approaching a design problem.

For that reason, it's a book I'd like to always have handy .. definitely a must for the bookshelf!

Wrote more at http://pratalife.blogspot.com/2008/07...

[Kelley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't finished this book, but I'm a little disappointed. Hoekman's first book, Designing the Obvious, was excellent. This books feels like a collection of blog posts written in too chatty a style. It's true that Hoekman's first book was a little dry, but he's gone too far in the other direction. And while he says up front that he's interested in starting conversations and not in providing definitive answers, it's just not as informative as it could be. I'm left feeling that, if it's all just his opinion and he's not really sure, then what is there to discuss? I say pahtaytoe, you say pohtahtoh.

[Teri Temme · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I love design and reading about the little fixes that can make a BIG difference on web sites was awesome.

This sums up, for me, what design is all about - from Robert: "... ,the goal is always to communicate to our users how something works, what they can get from it, and why it matters."

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good over all. I like the concept of "Ambient Signifiers", and want to explore it some more. I especially liked the theme of minimalism and avoiding trends. "Design is communication" is another message that seemed to click pretty well.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise look into attitudes and techniques in interaction design. Easy to absorb and to apply examples into larger principles.

[Scotty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great ideas. Some debatable ones. Worth reading quickly.

[Healthmedia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Designing the user experience so that it guides users through your site the way you want them to experience it. Very interesting -especially in terms of entering in info in forms or "questionnaires"