Designing the obvious

What Hacker News says

1. hmhrexFeb 2014
   Nice to see developers that care! I am a true believer in an app doing one thing well (a la Hoekman's "Designing The Obvious"), so maybe some of these suggestions could be rolled into a separate CRM app that integrates with Duet?

   Some of the features we are looking for:

   - Sales Opportunities/Leads with different stages (i.e. Identified, Qualified, In Process, etc.) (These would probably be similar to projects, just with different fields)

   - Notes and history for Companies/Company "Users"

   - Folders in the Files Section so, for example, we can separate Marketing Templates from Training Documentation.

   - Dashboards such as Open Opportunities dollar amount, Closed Won Sales dollar amounts, etc.

   - Alerts for phase completion. For example, when one phase of our project is complete, we either get an alert that this phase is complete, or the next phase is automatically created.

   - Permissions.

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2. hcarvalhoalvesAug 2013
   Try to learn and understand design as a discipline before going into the specifics of user interfaces and interaction design. For that I recommend:

   - Universal Principles of Design - William Lidwell

   - The Design of Everyday Things - Donald A. Norman

   Then for more practical knowledge:

   - Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability - Caroline Jarrett

   - Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability - Steve Krug

   - Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web & Mobile Application Design - Robert Hoekman Jr.

   - Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design - Bill Buxton

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3. rwhitmanJul 2012
   My favorite book on UX has been "Designing the Obvious" by Robert Hoekman, Jr. http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Obvious-Approach-Application...

   Might be a little dated but it was really influential a few years back

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4. aparadjaNov 2011
   I've read a few books about the subject. One of my favorites is Designing The Obvious by Robert Hoekman Jr: http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Obvious-Common-Approach-Appl...

   It has a pretty good signal/noise ratio.

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5. seasoupFeb 2011
   I don't care so much about the all in one page, but having to roll over the image to see the text was too difficult. Took me a minute just to figure it out. Have the text below the image without having to roll over it. I also had trouble figuring out at the opening shot where to click. Took me forever to find the next button, I found it just in time. I almost left!

   Check out the design books: The Design of Every Day things Designing the Obvious Information Dashboard Design

   for a primer on UI design.

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6. shadowmatterOct 2010
   These are exactly the two books I was going to recommend. Don't Make Me Think is like the K&R of web UX books, and Designing the Obvious is like a nice web 2.0 companion for it.

   Also, I'd throw in The Design of Everyday Things -- see http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/d.... It was written long before anyone ever thought of web usability; instead, it focuses on the usability of things you interact with daily in real life. Let's just say that you'll never look at teapots or door handles the same way again...

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