Graphical User Interfaces:
Design and usability
Saul Greenberg, Instructor

Literature Resources

I used some of the following material to prepare this course. They make an excellent core reading list for this topic.

Baecker, R., Grudin, J., Buxton, W., and Greenberg, S. (1995) Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000 (2nd Edition), 950 pages, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc, California. ISBN 1-55860-246-1, Dewey Catalog QA76.9.H85R43. A set of excellent original readings on core topics in HCI.
Preece, J. et al (1994) Human Computer Interaction, Addison Wesley. A recent textbook that has good breadth on many topics

Norman, D. A. (1988) The Design of Everyday Things, Basic Books, NY. This book talks about design of many things, from doors to telephones to computers. The book is a delightful and easy to read; you will enjoy it! Some of the material in this book will be covered in class.
Norman, D. (1993) Things that Make Us Smart. Addison Wesley. Another great book by Norman that takes a serious look at what computer characteristics / designs actually help people.

Mullet, K. and Sano, D. (1995) Designing visual interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques. Sunsoft Press. One of the only books that brings graphical design principles to interface design without getting caught up in a particular platform discussion. A must have resource.
Tufte, E. Three books from Graphics Press, PO Box 430, Cheshire, Connectictut, 06410. This beautiful series present supurb examples of excellence in graphical information visualization techniques. While examples are not of computer interfaces, the principles can be easily applied to them. A great read.
- Visual display of quantitative information (1983)
- Envisioning information (1990)
- Visual explanations (1997)
Cooper, A (1995) About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design. IDG Books. This book discusses many graphical techniques as applied to the Windows platform. While not as "general" as the other books, he raises many good points.
Horton, W. (1994) The Icon Book. Wiley. Everything you always wanted to know about icons.

Nielsen, J. (1993) Usability Engineering, Academic Press. One of the first books that provided a practical approach to treating interface design as an engineering process. Contains a wealth of methods and approaches..
Nielsen, J. and Mack, R. (1994) Usability Inspection Methods, Academic Press. Collects readings on inspection methods, where designers can evaluate interfaces without direct user involvement..
Lewis & Reiman (1993) Task Centered User Interface Design. On-line shareware that gives a good practitioner's approach to design.
Dumas, J. and Redish, J. 1993) A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Ablex. A practical "how-to" guide to setting up and carrying out usability testing within your organization.

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI): the main HCI conference
Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST): software for building interfaces
Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): groups working through computers
ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction
ACM Transactions on Information Systems
ACM Interactions Magazine
Behaviour and Information Technology
Human Computer Interaction
Interacting with Computers
International Journal of Human Computer Studies
Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work...

Last updated April 1997, by Saul Greenberg