Rating:  - The Title is Honest
One of the first question I always notice about books: Is the title honest? For this book I can unabashedly say, Yes. This book is for programmers.
I've been a full time developer for just over 5 years. Making technology work is my game, but when it comes to designing UIs, it's more like random dart throwing and voodoo. But, considering some of the stuff I've seen other people put out. . . my stuff is not too bad! Still, I like doing a professional job and users expect programmers like us to know UI design-in spite of the fact most of us can't even draw decent stick figures!
The best thing about this book is Joel speaks my language. He makes art comprehensible to the techny. Not an easy accomplishment, but Joel is no ordinary guy either. He runs his own ISV in New York City and hosts one of the most popular software development blog sites around. (joelonsoftware.com) To survive financially in a place like NYC says something of his abilities. This book like his other writings bear that out: great concepts, great illustrations and well packaged thought.
One note, this book is about principles of design. It is not a quick how-to book. If you need some templates for a GUI project you are starting tomorrow, or need to know the ins/outs of a particular OS graphical system, this book isn't for you. But, if like me you've struggled with every new UI and are searching for guiding principles, this book is great!
Rating: - Brilliant
This book is simply one of the best I have ever read. Joel's style is so funny, simple and expressive, and I enjoyed in every moment reading it. I read once that if someone realy understands the subject, then he must be able to explain it in simple way that almost everyone could understand. So, I think Joel truly knows what he's talking about, and not only in this book.
Rating: - Really nice reading about UI design
I would list two great points about the book:
- very nice book about User Interface design, a lot of valuable information & thoughts
- really nice English reading. Especially valuable for non-native speakers (like me) - easy to read, a lot of humor and live stories, you just make fun while reading
I can easily recommend the book to everyone interested in software development, not necessarily UI design.
Rating: - Turned me into an enthusiastic user interface designer!
This book provides excellent concepts to bear in mind when designing the UI. Moreover, it is really fun and easy to read! I enjoyed it a lot, and I would recommend it to any developer, as it made me realize the importance of good design and it helped me improve as a software designer.
I read someone else's comments that the book is not very thorough. I don't know about that, but in any case I would say it is an excellent FIRST book on user interface design that gives you what's most important: the motivation on the subject to read forward.
Rating: - Concise Architectural Common Sense
On receiving the book, my first thought was "what, only 134 pages ?" - these pages are very easy to turn, resembling card-stock rather than unabridged-dictionary. Being in the architectural-musing phase, however, I eventually concluded that a few key items of advice more than paid its way. As a busy architect, your time is valuable, you'd really would prefer NOT to have a tome of padded rambling. 134 good pages at the architectural level.
Thinking on towards the detailed design, a good complement would be Cooper's "About Face 2.0", which is much more detail-oriented, discussing the relative merits of drop-downs etc.
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