Moving Forward

If you’ve made it through the whole book, congratulations! You are well on your way to designing highly useable software. As you venture forward, please keep this book handy as a reference guide and review it when you can. You should be able to easily find the information pertaining to your current task. If you’re working on designing your windows, for example, you can refer to Chapter 3 of this book, “Laying Out Your Windows and Dialog Boxes.” If you’re concerned about some of your code, you can refer to Chapter 8, “Under the Hood.”

But please don’t stop with this book. I don’t claim to have all the answers, and I’m not going to let an inflated ego make that claim either. My goal is to see the world filled with only software that is highly useable. It is a mission of mine, and I am going to make this goal, even if it has to be one programmer at a time, starting with you. We are all in this together.

For your next step, see the Appendix, “Software Design Resources.” It lists groups, organizations, newsletters, magazines, websites, and books—all devoted to designing software for usability. Keep studying on your own, keep an eye out for usability as you are building your software, and make the best software you possibly can. (And lots of money, too.)