Tog on Interface

by Bruce Tognazzini

From one of the foremost authorities on the design of user interfaces, this unique collection of ideas and opinions, while focusing on the Macintosh, neatly captures the underlying principles of all graphical user interfaces. Using ideas from such diverse sources as Information Theory, Carl Jung, and even professional beekeeping, the book provides a framework for achieving a deep understanding of user interface design. With humor and thought-provoking insights, Bruce Tognazzini explores the central issues of human-computer interaction, including the challenges presented by multimedia applications, agents, virtual reality, and future technologies. Drawn from his long experience of working with developers, the book provides practical guidelines for developing successful applications that users will find simple, clear, and consistent. "Tog on Interface" is fascinating reading for all those concerned with the relationship between people and computers.

Genres: Design, Technical, Programming, Technology, Nonfiction, Usability, Reference

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Aneel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oddly, I found the most interesting material in the book to be the chapter on Jungian Types. But there's plenty of good Human Interface Design material here as well. It's fairly 90's Mac-centric in the main, and many of the examples not directly applicable to the kind of thing I'm working on right now, but the basic insights are the same. This book also prompted me to finally check out Ashlar Vellum, which turns out to be the drawing program that I've been looking for for years.

[Bernard Farrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this book is very dated, Tog's dry humor and opinions on user interface design are still worth reading. Bruce (Tog) Tognazzini worked at Apple designing some of the early Lisa and Mac interfaces and has good insight into what's makes the difference between a mediocre and an excellent UI.

[Summa Smiff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Tognazzini is clearly a talented designer, but as a writer, this collection of newsletters, aphorisms, and anecdotes is kind of all over the place. A lot of it is very specific to the Mac interface at the time of printing (1992), most of which I had never heard of, so a lot of the examples fell flat when I understood them at all. Most of them assume a familiarity that I simply do not have.

Other parts of the book are excellent - chapter 17, on conceptual models, could probably be the basis of a pretty spectacular interface design book on its own. The guidelines, peppered throughout the text, suffer the same problem as the letters - sometimes they are fantastic and useful to any designer, but other times they are overly specific to the exact circumstances of the writer.

Ultimately, it seems like the field of interface design is still in its infancy, and books like this show the process by which anecdotes become generalized into theories.

[Alex Salo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to believe that many points that Tog brought up are still valid. His style is great - true old century - verbose and humorous. Many parts could be skipped, as some things are obsolete - like Apple Hyperlink. But some things are very rare and great - I definitely recommend looking through and reading parts that look appealing.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tog shares some timeless advice on creating intuitive user interfaces, along with some pop-psychology and experiences working at Apple to back up his claims.

I would recommend reading only excerpts of this book, as quite a bit of what is written here heavily references the software and technology coming out in the early 90s. There is lots of focus on the software of the time, which it seems the only use of reading now is experiencing some nostalgia and getting some hindsight on where user interfaces came from.

Also worth commenting on is the amount of digressions and kinda pretentious analogies and stories that Tog brings up which kinda tear me away from the subject at hand and aren't easily understood as connecting to the subject of the chapter. Tog has a lot of experience in user testing and R&D for Apple, so I would have appreciated him sharing more hard data here about user interface development, but the most you get are a few chapters where he tells a few stories about how certain interfaces were designed, the user testing response to them, and how he iterated on those designs.

The chapter about looking into the future of computing is interesting as well. 30+ years after this book has been written, and Tog semi-accurately predicts what AI and VR are going to do. It's a shame education hasn't changed much though :(

I'm interested in looking for more scientific literature on interface design, but this wasn't a waste of time by any means. Just know that if you read it cover to cover like me, you will see Tog indulge himself by being silly or telling weird off-topic stories frequently.

You can get a more bare-bones version of the information in this book from Tog's website: https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-...

[Ben Bederson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice, but too pretentious

[Alain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beau geste!