Designing visual interfaces

What Hacker News says

1. WillAdamsOct 2026
   My favourite book on this is _Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques_ by Kevin E. Mullet and Darrell Sano

   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/344729.Designing_Visual_...

   and the high water mark of my graphical UI experience was when I used an NCR-3125 running Go Corp.'s PenPoint as a portable/note-taking/sketching device and a NeXT Cube w/ a Wacom ArtZ as my desktop.

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2. specialistApr 2024
   Neat. I like it.

   Out of curiousity, why don't browsers have pluggable layout managers? Like Java's AWT/Swing LayoutManager. [1]

   Fussing with CSS and Java's stock layout managers (gridbag, table) always fills me with frustration and anxiety. In my experience, for the fussy work, it's easier to explicitly code what I want.

   Ages ago, inspired by Designing Visual Interfaces [2], I made a layout manager [3] for canonical design grids [4].

   It was pretty neat. Fluent API. Always visually correct. All the baselines aligned just so. Predictable results. Perfect for banging out CRUD forms. [5]

   1/ https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/21/docs/api/java.desk...

   2/ https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Visual-Interfaces-Communica...

   3/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110302212909/http://java.net/p...

   4/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110308034949/http://designgrid...

   5/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110515182322/http://wiki.java....

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3. ansupterDec 2021
   To throw another hat into the ring, I liked "Designing Visual Interfaces" by Mullet and Sano. It has one of my favorite quotes:

   > Without minimizing the value of intuition as a problem solving tool, we propose that systematic design programs are more valuable from a communication standpoint than ad hoc solutions; that intention is preferable to accident; that principled rationale provides a compelling basis for design decisions than personal creative impulse.

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4. NekorosuOct 2016
   This one is good at teaching both fundamental design principles and UI design in particular Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques

   This is an introduction to UX The User Experience Team of One

   It's from Rosenfeld Media and you should take a look at the rest of their books. They are of a high quality and cover a wide range of topics related to both UI design and UX.

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5. danmaz74May 2013
   I'm an engineer too, and many years ago I read a book that I really found illuminating: http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Visual-Interfaces-Communicat...

   The examples about applications design are outdated, but the principles and clarity of exposition are still top notch.

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6. danmaz74Nov 2011
   I really loved - not something that happens often to me - "Designing visual interfaces" by Mullet and Sano. The examples are dated now, but the techniques and the suggestions are pure gold.
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