Tog on Interface

Our son had this on his Christmas wish list. He sat down that day and read it straight thru.. then took it to work. Said this was well written and he enjoyed it very much.

Want to write a brilliant applicatioin? Then think and process information the way your user will think and process, and design your application for them, not you! Easy concept to say and comprehend, but rather hard to actually do. Tog, through examples and descriptions, tells us how people think and process information. The not-so-surprising thing is that most code slingers think in conceptual ways that are not so common. Go figure. Tog really does help you understand how most others will process, and that understanding makes you a better developer.My company makes these chapters on processing information a required reading for all new developers that join the company. It is that good. The Intuition quiz, the one that tries to help you see how your own brain stores and retrieves information, is an addiction for every new reader. Of course, one of the coded sayings "9 P in the SS" is dated. Today it should be written "8 P in the SS". Tomorrow it may change again.

I am a big fan of AskTog, so I bought this book. Some of the information is a bit dated (and relates specifically to the old Macintosh), but much of it is sound design principles expressed informally (and in a readable way).The presentation of the material is great. Even flipping quickly through the pages should turn up useful nuggets. If you have an interest in design evolution, this is a good read. If you want some good design principles easily explained, this is a good read. Many of his stories are condensed down into bolded, bulleted "rules" of design.The one thing I didn't like about the book: Tog lives in a sheltered reality. If research shows something he disagrees with, he calls it bad research. If research supports his ideas, it is quickly pointed out as solid evidence. It is very important to read anything by Tog with a critical (but open) mind. Not all of his ideas have stood the test of time.All things considered, this book is worth reading for developers and designers of any Visual Interface (Tog explains his distaste for the term "Graphical User Interface").

You'll get some good laughs, as you follow Tog through the complexities of designing some of the earliest, and still the best, interfaces out there...he was, as I recall, the Interface Czar at Apple when they were creating the Mac, then worked at Sun, and now is part of the Nielsen Norman Group. The book's good background for his site, AskTog.com. You'll get the basics, without the sour looks of some other interface gurus, and you'll get a sense of the way a leading designer interacted with the developers he had to persuade to follow his lead.

Diving into "Tog on Interface", a collection of Apple Macintosh developer newsletter column reprints, provides the same guilty pleasure as finding a stack of fifty year old technical magazines. Clearly, there was an audience somewhere, and a dialogue going on, and interesting topics being discussed. But, oh it seems so long ago and what are all those strange mechanical devices they're referring to? On closer study, the second analogy that comes to mind is the Europe-in-7-days package; Tognazzini touches on almost every conceivable topic, if only to drop a reference here or tie in a point there. The comments are usually on target, but left me seeking answers that were deeper and less flippant. This book is riddled with the author's humor and point of view; if you find attempted cuteness or a stream of in-jokes annoying, steer clear.I bought this book after devouring Tognazzini's well regarded web interface design site, which left me wanting more. I didn't get it in this book, but did find what I was looking for in other books on the topic of interface design: Jeff Johnson's "GUI Bloopers", which is organized like Tog's web site, Alan Cooper's Windows-centric rant "About Face" and Jef Raskin's Mac and Canon Cat dominated "The Humane Interface".

It's more on Apple Computer's UI design experience. I don't feel you can apply a lot to the general UI design.

Il y a des livres sur l'ergonomie des interfaces qui ne vieillissent pas, comme "The Design of Everyday Things", de Donald Norman. Mais "Tog on Interface" n'est pas un de ceux-là. Ce livre n'a qu'un intérêt historique, si on veut mieux connaître la culture d'Apple des années 80/90. Il ne me semble plus pertinent aujourd'hui.

Tog's analysis and detailed dissection of interface design and behaviour is fascinating and enlightening. It is all about long-dead versions of the Macintosh operating system – it isn't directly relevant to any system people use today – but the thinking in here is still really useful. This book is part of what gave me an important level of understanding that I have been building on ever since in software design, professional review writing, and university teaching. If you want to know more about how the interfaces of today developed, or you want to expand your understanding of UI and UX design, this is a great read.

the book is simply a classic. maybe of limited use for today's day to day work, but then again one can find a different perspective on many things. so much insight on why things are as the are today, and which reasoning or accidents has led to those design decisions. from the ages when clicking on an icon and having something happen in your computer/application was somewhat like magic happening.