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Tables of Contents for About Face
Chapter/Section Title
Page #
Page Count
Introduction
1
1
Who should read this book
2
1
Why I wrote this book
3
1
A taxonomy of software design
4
2
Conventions used in this book
6
2
Let's design
8
1
Part I: The Goal
9
42
Goal-Directed Design
11
10
The user's goals
12
4
The essence of user interface design
16
2
A fresh look at features
18
3
Software Design
21
6
Software isn't designed
21
2
Conflict of interest
23
1
The profession of software design
24
1
Supporting software design disciplines
24
3
The Three Models
27
14
The manifest model
27
8
Bringing mechanical age models into the information age
35
4
It's worse on a computer
39
2
Visual Interface Design
41
10
Restricting the vocabulary
47
1
The Canonical Vocabulary
48
1
Designing for users
49
2
Part II: The Form
51
74
Idioms and Affordances
53
14
The Myth of Metaphor
53
11
Manual affordances
64
1
Understanding what it means
65
2
An Irreverent History of Rectangle on the Screen
67
6
Xerox PARC
67
6
Windows-with-a-Small-w
73
8
Unnecessary rooms
73
2
Necessary rooms
75
2
Windows pollution
77
4
Lord of the Files
81
20
The tragedy of the file system
81
5
Designing software with the proper model
86
5
Unify the file model
91
1
Document management
92
4
How did we get here?
96
5
Storage and Retrieval Systems
101
12
Storing versus finding
101
6
It ain't document-centric
107
6
Choosing Platforms
113
12
Software is the expensive part
113
1
The half-life of a desktop computer
114
2
Choosing a development platform
116
3
Simultaneous Multiplatform Development
119
2
The Myth of Interoperability
121
4
Part III: The Behavior
125
68
Orchestration and Flow
127
24
Planing on the step
127
17
Where were you on the night of the sixteenth?
144
2
Sensible interaction
146
5
Posture and State
151
20
Posture
151
12
Windows states
163
5
MDI
168
3
Overhead and Idiocy
171
12
Overhead
171
7
Idiocy
178
5
The Secret Weapon of Interface Design
183
10
Get a memory
183
3
Task coherence
186
4
A new way of thinking
190
3
Part IV: The Interaction
193
76
Elephants, Mice and Minnies
195
22
Why we use a mouse instead of a pen
195
1
Indirect Manipulation
196
1
Mice are not here to stay
197
1
Mousing around
198
2
The left mouse button
200
1
Right mouse button
201
1
Middle mouse button
202
1
Things you can do with a mouse
202
5
Up and down events
207
1
The cursor
208
4
Focus
212
2
Meta-keys
214
3
Selection
217
12
Object-verb
217
2
Concrete and discrete data
219
1
Insertion and replacement
220
2
Additive selection
222
1
Group selection
223
1
Visual indication of selection
224
5
Direct Manipulation
229
18
Manipulating gizmos
231
7
Repositioning
238
1
Resizing and reshaping
239
5
Arrowing
244
1
Direct-manipulation visual feedback
245
2
Drag-and-Drop
247
22
Whither drag-and-drop?
247
2
Dragging where?
249
1
Master-and-target
249
3
How master-and-target works
252
4
Tool-manipulation drag-and-drop
256
3
Bomb sighting
259
1
Drag-and drop problems and solutions
260
9
Part V: The Cast
269
98
The Meaning of Menus
271
12
The command-line interface
271
1
The hierarchical menu interface
272
2
The Lotus 1-2-3 interface
274
2
Monocline grouping
276
1
The popup menu
277
1
The pedagogic vector
278
5
Menus
283
16
Standard menus
283
2
The correct menus
285
3
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth
288
1
Optional menus
289
2
Menu item variants
291
6
The system menu
297
2
Dialog Boxes
299
20
Suspension of normal interaction
299
3
Dialog box basics
302
1
Modal dialog boxes
302
1
Modeless dialog boxes
303
1
The modeless dialog problem
304
1
Two solutions
305
2
A more radical, but better, solution
307
4
Property dialog boxes
311
2
Function dialog boxes
313
1
Bulletin dialog boxes
313
2
Process dialog boxes
315
4
Dialog Box Etiquette
319
22
You rang?
319
1
The caption bar
320
2
Transient posture
322
1
Reduce excise
322
3
Terminating commands for model dialog boxes
325
3
Keyboard shortcuts
328
1
Tabbed dialogs
328
6
Expanding dialogs
334
1
Cascading dialogs
335
2
Directed dialogs
337
4
Toolbars
341
14
Visible and immediate
341
4
The toolbar freed the menu to teach
345
4
Beyond the buttcon
349
1
Toolbar morphing
350
5
Roll the Credits, Please
355
12
Your program's name
355
2
Your program's icon
357
1
Dependencies
357
1
About boxes
358
4
Splash screens
362
2
Easter eggs
364
3
Part VI: The Gizmos
367
54
Imperative and Selection Gizmos
369
24
Gizmo-laden dialog boxes
370
1
Gizmo liberation
370
2
The gizmos that Mother gives you
372
1
Imperative gizmos
372
3
Selection gizmos
375
16
Combobox
391
1
Treeview gizmo
392
1
Entry and Display Gizmos
393
16
Entry gizmos
393
1
Bounding
394
3
Unbounded entry fields
397
1
Validation
398
5
Using an edit field for output
403
2
Display gizmos
405
1
Those darned scrollbars
406
3
New Gizmos
409
12
Directly manipulable tools
409
3
Extraction gizmos
412
4
Visual gizmos
416
3
Adding visual richness
419
2
Part VII: The Guardian
421
60
The End of Errors
423
18
Eliminating the error message box
423
1
Bulletin Dialog Boxes
424
1
Stopping the proceedings
425
8
Positive feedback
433
2
Treat error messages like GOTOs
435
1
Exceptions?
436
1
Do they work?
437
1
What error message dialog boxes should look like
438
1
The end of errors
439
2
Managing Exceptions
441
24
Alerts
441
3
Confirmations
444
4
Who are we protecting, anyway?
448
6
Audible feedback
454
3
Using your powers for good
457
5
Failing gracefully
462
3
Undo
465
16
Assisting the exploration
465
5
The trouble with single undo
470
2
Redo
472
1
Special undo functions
473
2
Deleted data buffer
475
1
Other manifest models
476
2
Undo is a global facility and should not be managed by local controls
478
1
Undo-proof operations
478
3
Part VIII: The Teacher
481
Good at What You Do
483
The time users spend
483
Command vectors
486
What beginners need
490
What perpetual intermediates need
492
What experts need
492
Idiosyncratically modal behavior
493
Commensurate effort
495
The typers versus the pointers
495
Standards
499
Online help
501
The inverted meta-question
504
Installation, Configuration and Personalization
507
Navigation is by reference to permanent objects
507
Pull at your own risk
510
The corporate look
513
Installation
515
Shouldering the Burden
531
Let's put those idle cycles to work
533
Get our software talking to our hardware
541
Where Do We Go from Here?
543
Software sucks
543
We know a lot about old technology
545
Don't ask programmers to design while they code
547
Solving the problem
548
``I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore''
552