Acknowledgments

I would first like to thank my heroes in the HCI community who have done so much to create this field and whose work inspired me to enter it: Stuart Card, Thomas Moran, Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, Jakob Nielsen, and Don Norman.

Dave Kieras and Jay Elkerton made me learn GOMS in college, and although I resented it then, I kind of get it now. Kind of.

Most of what I learned about this topic I learned by working at two amazing companies, Presence and HotWired. Presence made me understand that design is a business, and HotWired made me understand that business is design. A special thank you to Tom Soulanille, Mike Ravine, Scott Brylow, and Tod Kurt from Presence. At HotWired, Barbara Kuhr, Thau!, Erik Adigard, Eric Eaton, Jonathan Louie, Doug Bowman, Kevin Lyons, Taylor, and Nadav Savio helped me think about interaction differently, but everyone from HotWired Class of '96 is amazing. Everyone.

Extra double props to Erik Adigard, Kevin Hunsaker, Marshall Platt, and the Webmonkey gang.

My clients' enthusiastic support gave me the opportunity to practice, learn, explore, and tune these methods. Without their sponsorship and input, the material would be much poorer.

Thank you to everyone who gave me advice during the protracted writing process that this book became: David Peters, Victoria Bellotti, Lou Rosenfeld, John Shiple, Jon Katz, Jonathan Gauntlett, Kent Dhalgren, Suzanne Gibbs, Chris Miller, Beth Leber, Phil Barrett and Meriel Yates at Flow Interactive, Christina Wodtke, Kim Ladin, Ken Small, Josh Gross-nickel, Jen Robbins, and Avery Cohen.

My technical editors gave great advice, only some of which I followed. Blame me for not always listening to Carolyn Snyder, Jared Braiterman, Chris Nodder, and Chauncey Wilson.

Many thanks to Lynda Weinman for her wonderful foreword contribution.

Richard Koman started this whole process when he asked me whether I wanted to write a completely different book and then listening when I said "No, I don't want to write that book, but here's one I do want to write." Lorrie LeJeune kept me going with wisdom, a sense of humor, and the amazing ability to identify cow breeds over the phone. Lucie Moses read a draft that was for to early for prime time and gave me great feedback. Joslyn Leve was my second set of eyes, reading the whole thing and moving it along while keeping a straight face. Diane Cerra and everyone at Morgan Kaufmann rescued it from my perpetual procrastination with a hard deadline and a warm smile.

My business partners at Adaptive Path, Lane Becker, Janice Fraser, Jesse James Garrett, Peter Merholz, Jeff Veen, and Indi Young were patient and supportive while I disappeared for months at a time instead of nurturing a fledgling company. Jeff and Lane even managed to edit the book in their spare time. I can't imagine a group of people I would more want to work with.

The places where I wrote were a key part of the process. Jonnie D bele, Hannelore Kober, and Julia D bele gave me a home in Dagersheim. Susan Argus provided the Black Anguses in Castleton. The cafes of San Francisco's Mission District and Lower Haight were my office, kitchen, and entertainment throughout the whole process (special thanks to Mission Grounds, Caf Macondo, and Crepevine).

Several friendships played a great role in how this book was written: Andrea and Scott yanked me out to California and onto the Web in the first place. Moses, Lucie, and Felix gave me advice, food, television, and some drool. Jim distracted me with puppets. bianca gave me love, couches, and grilled cheese. Robin wrote emails. Genevieve called.

Molly Wright Steenson shares with me her life and her 80 boxes of monkey love, which is more than I could ever wish for.

This book is for my parents, who have always believed in me more than I thought prudent.

This book was written entirely using OpenOffice, from the first keystroke to—well, just about to—the last. It only crashed a couple of times. Really.

The music that kept me writing was performed by The Magnetic Fields, The Klezmatics, Photek, Tindersticks, Badmarsh and Shri, Boards of Canada, DJ Food, Nick Cave, and Black Box Recorder.