Recommended Reading

• Cooper, Alan. About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design. Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc., 1995.

In Chapter 7, "Windows-with-a-Small-w," Cooper compares windows to rooms and contrasts unnecessary rooms with necessary ones. He then points out how some bad programs have a confusing mess of windows, which he calls "windows pollution." Chapter 11, "Orchestration and Flow," describes how direct interaction is better than using dialog boxes, the advantage of keeping often-used tools close at hand, how good orchestration can be used to eliminate unnecessary user interface elements, how programmers confuse possibility with probability and tend to ask questions with dialog boxes even when the answer is almost certain, and how asking questions differs from offering choices. Chapter 14, "The Secret Weapon of Interface Design," describes how to eliminate unnecessary dialog boxes by remembering previous input and using direct manipulation. Chapter 21, "Dialog Boxes," again describes how dialog boxes are like rooms and how dialog boxes break the flow.