Bringing Design to Software

by Terry Winograd (Editor), John Bennett (Editor), Laura De Young (Editor)

The book contains essays contributed by prominent software and design professionals, interviews with experts, and profiles of successful projects and products. These elements are woven together to illuminate what design is, to identify the common core of practices in every design field, and to show how software builders can apply these practices to produce software that is more satisfying for users. The initial chapters view software from the user's perspective, featuring the insights of experienced software designers and developers, including Mitchell Kapor, David Liddle, John Rheinfrank, Peter Denning, and John Seely Brown. Subsequent chapters turn to the designer and the design process, with contributions from designers and design experts, including David Kelley, Donald Schon, and Donald Norman. Profiles discussing Mosaic, Quicken, Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, Microsoft Bob, and other notable applications and projects highlight key points in the chapters.
This book is for a broad community of people who conceive, develop, market, evaluate, and use software. It is foremost for software designers - particularly the reflective designer who is driven by practical concerns yet is able to step back for a moment and reflect on what works, what doesn't work, and why. At the same time, it reveals new directions and new possibilities for programmers who build software and for product managers who bring software to market.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Programming, Software

321 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Marcia Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just re-read parts of this book and was reminded that John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid's chapter on Simplicity (Keep It Simple, chapter 7) is worth the price of the whole book. You can read just this chapter on JSB's website. http://www.johnseelybrown.com/keeping...

The book isn't light reading. It has a formal, not quite academic tone, but is filled with real-world examples, metaphors and descriptions that put everything into context quickly. Of course is a bit dated now, yet it's fantastic to see how much of what still needs to be done to create useful tools was outlined clearly in this book. A must-read for anyone interested in software design or technology design in general.

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

don’t waste your time on this book. it is outdated and full of material that is now completely irrelevant. i cannot find any usefull idea in this book: either pages are covered with banalities or with ideas that are completely irrelevant to software development and just added to the book because they contained some words about “design”.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

These days, many companies have a position called Software Architect, but when this book was written, in 1996, there was no such thing. This is a collection of essays on how to design software written people who were pioneers in the field. It's a very interesting book, if you're a software developer.