Abstract

Imagine how much easier creating web and mobile applications would be if you had a practical and concise, hands-on guide to visual design. Visual Usability gets into the nitty-gritty of applying visual design principles to complex application design.

You’ll learn how to avoid common mistakes, make informed decisions about application design, and elevate the ordinary. We’ll review three key principles that affect application design – consistency, hierarchy, and personality – and illustrate how to apply tools like typography, color, and layout to digital application design. Whether you’re a UI professional looking to fine-tune your skills, a developer who cares about making applications beautiful and usable, or someone entirely new to the design arena, Visual Usability is your one-stop, practical guide to visual design.

• Discover the principles and rules that underlie successful application design
• Learn how to develop a rationale to support design strategy and move teams forward
• Master the visual design toolkit to increase user-friendliness and make complicated processes feel straightforward for your product

"This book provides very valuable information on how to improve the usability of visual human-computer interfaces…All of the chapters will interest researchers, practitioners, and students of usability, human-computer interaction, interaction design, graphic design, and other related fields who want to know more about the important and expanding area of visual usability."--Computing Reviews, May 28, 2014 "…an excellent choice for the instructor looking for a textbook detailing the major principles and practices of designing Web site or mobile device interfaces… Particularly effective is the authors’ running critique of the USDA Web site, SuperTracker, for its strengths and weaknesses in visual usability."--Technical Communication, May 2014 "With Tania Schlatter and Deborah Levinson at the helms, both proven experts in their fields, the book ‘visually’ takes you through all the various aspects of user experience design…This book is a pleasant surprise, and a joy to read."--Actual Insights blog, October 26, 2013 "Design veterans Schlatter and Levinson see a lot of digital applications that either look great or are highly functional, but not both, and contend that it does have to be that way. Drawing on heuristics and best practices from a variety of languages and disciplines, they explain how anyone involved in creating digital interfaces can define and defend a rationale for design decisions."--Reference & Research Book News, October 2013