About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design

I really learned a lot from this book. I can't think of any reason to give it less than 5 stars.It's a great overview of a field I'm not particularly familiar with, so I can't comment about the choice of topics. However, what is covered is covered rather effectively. There are wonderful examples throughout to concretize the principles illustrated.The author has a clear perspective on what good and bad design is, and it was very tastefully done. It doesn't come across as derogatory even when criticizing a particular approach or product. It's always a learning experience to read through an example you're already familiar with.This book helped me to see design as a sort of science with many useful principles. It won't make me good at design per se, but there was enough practical suggestions that it'll greatly improve the apps I write for fun. And the theory also serves as a good context for the practical advice. They're connected very well, with a good mix of each.

This book is an exceptional read, the A-Z of interaction design's methodology, process and discussion. I appreciate the fact the authors give various opinions on certain procedures by other authors/practitioners and explain why they do/do not like it within context. The book also gives reference to other literature where more explanation may be needed (like on usability testing or persona research). I highly recommend it.

The value of the content in this book is high. Coming from 2007, is still giving real tips and its study cases are very useful to learn better ways to work in some UI or UX issues that you can see in your career in different projects.The quality of the book is not quite good, the paper seems low quality and the cover is weak, but it doesn't matter so much because the learnable content is worth.I would give 5 stars if it had an actual edition.

This book serves two purposes:1. It's a great intro to interaction design and UX in general2. It's a handy reference for when specific design questions come up and you need to remember what the best practice is for a certain type of interface element.I'm a UX Designer with several years experience, and I still can't get enough of this book. Cooper knows his stuff (of course; he goes way back with software and he's the head of one of the big UX consultancies) and lays it out simply and logically. If you do any kind of software design, read this and remember it. If you're a designer, keep it on hand.

This book, as with Alan's earlier editions, is quite good, certainly 5 stars. Not only a good read, but thought provoking. There is very little repetition of ealier material or examples.However the quality of the paper is just a step above newsprint, the illustrations are all in B&W and the cover lamination peeling off after only 3 chapters read. Published by Wiley.Compare this with Martin Evening's "Photoshop CS2 for Photographers" at the same price. Martin's book is in full color, coated papers and fine binding. Published by Focal Press.Really makes you feel like you are getting ripped off by the publisher.Alan... get a better publisher!

I am a UX specialist and have read most of the titles in the subject. This one is far superior by being most comprehensive yet well organized and able to teach you actually how to approach to the process step by step, unlike others just giving some tips here and there and leaving you confused. Starting with web-based application and projects, this book should be a fundamental must-read before starting to do any type of interface & interaction & UX design project.

I strongly recommend this book as a way to establish a coherent framework for interaction design and for approaching design generally in an organization. The author is not afraid to take positions on the best technique for X or whats wrong with Y. Rather than being a mishmash of design methodologies and patterns (which describes a lot of books in this category), it's a specific progressive approach based on real-world experience. Loved it.

About Face is really foundational; but in it's breadth it can also become monotonous. I've been reading 2~3 chapters a week and I haven't finished in 9 weeks.

The only book you will probably need to read in Interaction Design. The writing style also is very lucid and easily understandable. The book is fill with lot of great insights from common examples. Loved it ;-)

About Face 3 presents all the most important considerations and techniques in user interaction design in a single, well-organized, very well-written volume. It presents a complete method for conducting design processes focused on users in their real working environment. Then it presents design patterns that have emerged as common elements of good designs (and a few anti-patterns from bad designs.) Each topic is illustrated with real-world examples (often famous ones), and the author is direct -- sometimes insulting and funny, sometimes laudatory -- about what is right or wrong about a given design.My only criticism would be that the Cooper Method is presented as a fairly strongly "waterfall-ish" process. However, anyone who understands agile processes (e.g., Scrum) will be able to adapt it quite easily -- its user focus and iterative approach are made for agile processes. I am looking forward to applying Cooper's method in the next phase of my current project.

Deeply relevant and very influential: if you're a software developer, you owe it to your users to buy this book.The book is organised into three distinct parts, each of which has a rather different tone. The first part is an introduction to "personas" and their goals. Much emphasis is placed on detailed research such as interviews with sample users, which is a fine luxury if you have the resources and time! However, even developers working in smaller teams will find the general principles useful.The second part is concerned with the overall approach that an application should take. It discusses "posture": whether an application should be "full-screen" and sovereign or an infrequently used utility, and how this changes the top-level design.This second part includes my favourite chapter, "Eliminating Excise", which is really pretty funny - it points out why we find prompts from Word annoying and why Motorola phones are just plain frustrating. However, the advice to fix these frustrations might be a bit over the top unless you have an infinite development budget: I too would love to have multi-level undos that are persistent across application sessions.The final part covers specific advice on layouts and controls. It brings together more concrete suggestions based on the previous two parts.It's quite possible that the ideas in this book influenced the design of applications such as Office 2007 and iTunes. Although few developers have the challenge of designing Web sites or applications for the mass market, the advice in this book is worth considering even for corporate applications. Just watch the budget!

This is a necessary reference for software interaction designers and their managers.

Great book, I got to learn a lot about Interaction design,but I personally feel the use of Users' Mental Models could have been explained in even greater depth,