Monash University
School of Computer Science and Software Engineering
CSE3030 Graphic User Interface Technology
Useful References, On-Line and Off
Dan Eaves
All links were tested and working on the 20st December, 2005.
Please email me or post other sites and resources you think belong here. I’ll check
them out and add them here as appropriate.
Required Text
You will not be able to pass this subject without reading the textbook.
Alan Cooper and Robert Reimann. About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction
Design. Wiley Publishing, 2003. Cooper’s web site contains useful stuff, esp.
in its newsletters (under the “Insights” dropdown).
Strongly Recommended Text
Donald A. Norman. The Design of Everyday Things, 1990, MIT Pr. (paperback)
Norman’s very useful web site. There’s an especially good essay on Personas.
Recommended Programming Texts
Picking a tutorial for learning a new programming language is very personal. I found
the following two books really useful, but you may not. They’re both in the
Bookstore.
The best approach may be to go to a bookstore with lots of Visual Studio .NET books,
and chairs (say Border’s in Prahran) and review the books until you find one on your
wavelength.
Anne Prince (2002). Murach’s Beginning Visual Basic .NET. Mike Murach and
Associates.
Anne Prince and Doug Lowe (2003) Murach’s VB.NET Database Programming with
ADO.NET. Mike Murach and Associates.
General HCI (Human Computer Interaction) Material
HCI Bibliography : Human-Computer Interaction Resources
Martin Helander, Thomas Landauer, Prasad Prabhu (Editors). Handbook of HumanComputer Interaction. 2nd edition. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1997. ISBN 0444-81862-6
CSE3030: GUI Technology: Required Reading, Links, Useful References (rev. 12/05)
Page 1
Julie A. Jacko, Andrew Sears (Editors). The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook:
Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applications (Human
Factors and Ergonomics). LEA, 2003. ISBN: 0-8058-4468-6
Some of the Classics
John M. Carroll. Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer
Interactions. The MIT Press, 2000.
Alan Cooper The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, Sams, 1999 ISBN 0-672-31649-8
Donald A. Norman. The Invisible Computer. MIT Press, 1999.
Donald A. Norman. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things.
Basic Books, 2004.
Edward Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Graphics Press. 09613921-0-X 1983.
Edward Tufte. Envisioning Information. Graphics Press. ISBN 0-9613921-1-8. 1990.
Edward Tufte. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
Graphics Press. ISBN 0-9613921-2-6. 1997.
Tufte’s very useful web site. The Ask E.T. section is frustrating because it’s
disorganised but still full of really good comments and discussions.
Some Good HCI Textbooks
Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers, Helen Sharp, David Benyon, Simon Holland & Tom
Carey. Human-Computer Interaction. Wokingham, UK: Addison Wesley,
1994. ISBN 0-201-62769-8
Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers, & Helen Sharp Interaction Design: Beyond HumanComputer Interaction. New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002. ISBN 0471-49278-7.
Harold Thimbleby User Interface Design 1990 Reading, MA Addison-Wesley
Publishing ACM Press ISBN 0-201-41618-2
Some Good Web Design Sources
Note: You need to be wary of many listed sources that are old, unupdated, and suffer
from terminal link rot and bit rot. Simply ignore sites which are not being updated and
haven’t been for a couple of years. While they may seem to have good examples of
bad site design, those bad sites will have evolved since their listing, and fashion in
Web site design in 2005 is quite different from that of, say, 2000.
Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton. Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for
Creating Web Sites / 1999 Yale University Press ISBN 0-30007675-4
Jakob Nielsen Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, New Riders
Publishing, Indianapolis, 2000. ISBN 1-56205-810-X.
Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir. Homepage Usability:50 Websites Deconstructed New
Riders Publishing, Indianapolis, 2001, ISBN 0-73571-102-X
Jakob Nielsen's Website. See also the reports of Nielsen’s company:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/web/nngroup/
CSE3030: GUI Technology: Required Reading, Links, Useful References (rev. 12/05)
Page 2
Don Norman’s Website.
Web Pages that Suck.
Bad Designs. Currently almost, but not quite, static. Still, full of good examples of
bad design.
WebWord.com: the usability blog of John S. Rhodes. Some of the blog discussions
are good.
iarchitect.com. A good set of links to many usability sites.
Environment-Specific Interface Standards
Microsoft Windows User Experience: Official Guidelines for User Interface
Developers and Designers. Microsoft Press, 1999. Available on-line at:
Official Guidelines for User Interface Developers and Designers
There’s an extension for XP (2002) for downloading at: Windows XP Guidelines for Applications
Vista/Longhorn (Windows 2006) interface standards are incomplete, but
current materials are at User Experience (Aero) Note that the new interface
will be called Avalon.
Apple Computer, Inc. (2004) Introduction to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines,
OS X edition. The full site at the Apple Developer Connection is useful.
Java(TM) Look and Feel Design Guidelines Volume 1 (2nd Edition); Volume 2:
Advanced Topics (2001) Sun Microsystems Inc. (Editor). Addison Wesley.
Both volumes available on-line at http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/
IBM Ease of Use
Microsoft’s Usability Web Sites
Microsoft's User Interface home.
Microsoft's Useability Research homepage.
Vista/Longhorn (Windows 2006) User Experience.
Visual Basic
The starting point is the Microsoft Developers' Network (MSDN) site map
Visual Basic .NET Home Page.
.NET Framework Home Page.
Visual Studio Home Page.
Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online.
Important note: With VB sites on the web, you must be careful to use those
which are specific to VB.NET. Most Visual Basic sites relate to VB 6 and remain
CSE3030: GUI Technology: Required Reading, Links, Useful References (rev. 12/05)
Page 3
available, but they are static as their maintainers have abandoned VB for other
languages.
Within the Microsoft sites, be sure you know whether it’s VS.NET 2003 or
VS.NET 2005 that’s being discussed.
The following pages are a sampling of .NET specific sites I’ve found useful.
O'Riley On Dotnet.
Programmers' Heaven - For free C++, Visual Basic, ASP, source code, programming,
javascript, code, Delphi, Pascal and more:
VB Helper: “Tips, tricks, & example programs for Visual Basic developers“
vbCity.com Forums, examples, etc.
VB CodeGuru (NB: the hypertext link here may not work. If it doesn’t, copy and
paste the address into your browser. It is indeed there!):
http://www.codeguru.com/vb/index.shtml
ComponentSource This is the leading source of commercial bolt-ons for developers.
VBxtras... Component Source’s leading competitor.
ACCESS-VB-SQL ADVISOR Magazine. Mostly subscription but some useful public
material.
Visual Studio Magazine (was VB Developers' Journal). Heavy Microsoft bias. Mostly
subscription but some useful public material.
The Code Project - Free VB Source Code and Tutorials:
George Shepherd’s Windows Forms FAQ – Lots of example code:
Xtreme .NET Forums.
Advanced Visual Basic at VBWire.
Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows.
About.com's useful sites: http://visualbasic.about.com/ http://webdesign.about.com/
Wikipedia: For anyone who doesn’t know, this is a great and growing resource.
There’s lots about programming and interactivity here.
Help System Development
DIVCOM Software. Offers Help Development Studio, a commercial product for
HTML Help system development. Highly recommended by CSE3030 students
in the past. 30 day free trial.
EC Software -- Help authoring software. 14 day free trial.
SIGs
Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG).
ACM/SIGCHI (Special Interest Group, Computer Human Interaction):
Vision, Brain Architecture and Other Things that Happen Between Your Ears
The Joy of Visual Perception
William H Calvin’s Books, Articles and Talks (Brains, evolution and climate). Note
that the full texts of all his books are available here. Wonderful site.
CSE3030: GUI Technology: Required Reading, Links, Useful References (rev. 12/05)
Page 4
Imagination, Mental Imagery, Consciousness, and Cognition: Scientific,
Philosophical and Historical Approaches.
Synapse Web.
Literature, Cognition & the Brain.
The Secret Life of the Brain.
The Whole Brain Atlas.
The Human Brain: Dissections of the Real Brain:
Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena.
Cyberspace
An Atlas of Cyberspaces – Literary, artistic and serious representations of cyberspace.
Science Fiction
William Gibson. Neuromancer. 1984. Many editions.
Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. Bantam 1992.
---. The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. Bantam 1995.
---. Cryptomicon. Arrow 1999. Warning: 918 wonderful pages.
Vernor Vinge. "True Names", a 1981 short story available in: True Names: and the
Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier, Tor Books, 2001.
CSE3030: GUI Technology: Required Reading, Links, Useful References (rev. 12/05)
Page 5