Related Chapters

• Chapter 10—Good User Interfaces Are Visible.

Describes visibility in general by discussing what makes a feature visible, what makes a feature invisible, and examples of visible features and feedback.

• Chapter 11—Good User Interfaces Are Invisible.

Discusses some of the more undesirable forms of feedback, such as beeping, blinking, sound effects, and unnecessary dialog boxes. Also discusses avoiding cumbersome metaphors and the characteristics of a good metaphor.

• Chapter 13—Learn from the Web.

Discusses the techniques used by the Web to make navigation more visible, such as showing the current context, using home pages, using navigation bars, and using the Web browser navigation model.

• Chapter 17—Direct Manipulation Is Cool.

Presents the techniques to make direct manipulation visible through feedback.

• Chapter 20—Previews Are Cool.

Presents the types of previews and gives examples of each type. Previews are an excellent way to provide visible feedback.

• Chapter 23—Unnecessary Message Boxes Are Pure Evil.

Unnecessary message boxes are the worst forms of feedback. This chapter discusses the various types of message boxes and gives tips on how to eliminate the unnecessary ones.

• Chapter 27—User Testing.

Discusses how to perform user testing and gives a specific procedure to make sure you get good feedback. You need to do user testing to make sure that users understand your conceptual models.

• Chapter 30—Check Your Error Messages.

Gives several suggestions on how to make sure your error messages provide helpful, easy-to-understand feedback.