Designing the Obvious: A Commonsense Approach to Web Application Design

Designing the Obvious belongs in the toolbox of every person charged with the design and development of Web-based software, from the CEO to the programming team. Designing the Obvious explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only whats necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity. Designing the Obvious does not offer a one-size-fits-all development process—in fact, it lets you use whatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently and successfully reproduce them.

Robert Hoekman, Jr, is a passionate and outspoken user experience strategist and a prolific writer who has written dozens of articles and has worked with MySpace, Seth Godin (Squidoo), Adobe, Automattic, United Airlines, and countless others. He gives in-house training sessions and has spoken at industry events all over the world, including An Event Apart, Voices That Matter, Web App Summit, SXSW, Future of Web Design, and many more.

Robert is the author of Designing the Moment (New Riders) (www.rhjr.net/s/dtm), a collection of 31 stories on design solutions from real projects and the principles used to solve them. He also coauthored Web Anatomy (New Riders) (www.rhjr.net/s/wa), which introduces “interaction design frameworks” as an essential part of an effective reuse strategy, with revered design researcher Jared Spool.

Robert is the founder of the user experience consultancy Miskeeto (www.miskeeto.com). Learn more about him at www.rhjr.net. He is @rhjr on Twitter (www.twitter.com/rhjr).