Workshops & ResourcesBooks

Essentials

• Object Modeling and User Interface Design: Designing Interactive Systems. Mark van Harmelen, editor, Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series, ©2001. Based (mostly) on CHI workshops held in 1997 and 1998, this book provides a collection of chapters covering a wide rage of topics concerning CHI and object-oriented software engineering.
• Object-Oriented User Interface Design IBM Common User Access Guidelines. IBM, Que, ©1992. IBM's CUA Workplace is the best object-oriented UI architecture yet to be commercially released. While Apple's look-and-feel is still arguably best for walk-up-and-use ease of use and novice and limited-domain user simplicity, CUA Workplace provides the modularity required to support most real-world complexity. This book is a must-have for the OOUI designer but, alas, it is out of print. Though only OS/2 supports the real power of this architecture, even Windows is beginning to support most of the key features though, as usual, nearly 10 years later.
• Designing Object-Oriented User Interfaces. Dave Collins, Benjamin Cummings, ©1995. This book is, to my mind, the seminal work on object-oriented user interface. Extremely well written and broad in scope, this book is a must read for anyone new to OOUI.
• Object-Oriented Methods Principle and Practice (3rd Edition). Ian Graham, Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series, ©.2001. An excellent encyclopaedic reference on object-technology. No matter how expert or non-expert or technical or non-technical you are, this is a must-have book for your library. For the object-technology newbie, the book provides a good overview of any topic you are first venturing into. For managers trying to wade through the often thick (and sometimes misused!) jargon issued by your staff, vendors, and consultants, this book can not be beat as the entries are about the length you would expect for an executive brief. For the object-technologies experienced this book provides entré to topics you may not yet have explored.

Patterns

• Design Patterns Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides, Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series, ©1995. This is the seminal work on patterns in software engineering. Note that this book is concerned with programming language patterns. The book is listed here as a key exemplar of pattern documentation.
• The Pattern Handbook. Linda Rising and James Coplien, editors, SIGS Reference Library, ©1998. Principally reprints of the seminal work on patterns in object-oriented software engineering. If you are working on user interface patterns, this book provides essential background reading.

UML

• The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual. James Rumbaugh, Ivar Jacobson, and Grady Booch, Addison-Wesley Object Technology series, ©1999. This book is the definitive description of UML notation and use of that notation. This is a must-have book for any analyst's bookshelf. If you are doing modeling work using UML, you must have access to this book.
• The Unified Modeling Language User Guide. Grady Booch, Ivar Jacobson, James Rumbaugh, and James Rumbaugh, Addison-Wesley Object Technology series, ©1998. An excellent depth discussion of the use of UML in requirements and software specfication. For those beginning and intermediate modelers, this book is a must-have.
• UML Distilled: Applying the Standard Object Modeling Language, 2nd Edition. Martin Fowler and Kendall Scott, Addison-Wesley Object Technology series, ©1999. An excellent and inexpensive overview of UML notation and use. This book is useful for beginning business analysts, user interface analysts and designers, and consumers of UML artifacts. Note that this book also, somewhat necessarily, embodies a methodology that is not suitable for all projects but whose core is really quite adaptable and generally useful.

CHI Methods

• Designing for the User with OVID: Bridging User Interface Design and Software Engineering. Dave Roberts, Dick Berry, Scott Isensee, and John Mullaly, Macmillan Technical Publishing Software Engineering Series, ©1998. OVID is one of the few CHI methods in use today that is both fully described and able to handle the problems and needs of a wide range of projects. One caveat to this high praise: the way in which the relationship between objects and their views are modeled is somewhat problematic (but the fact that this is modeled is a fantastic departure from the norm!). The first two authors of this book were also the two principal architects of the 1991 CUA Workplace architecture.
• User Interface Design. Larry E. Wood, editor, CRC Press, ©1998. Based on another CHI workshop held in 1996, this book provides chapters concerning CHI techniques covering the "gap" between user requirements and interface design. There are some real finds in this book including Dayton, McFarland, and Kramer's excellent chapter on their Bridge technique which includes many independently useful gems such as their Big Picture diagram.

Analysis

• Analysis Patterns : Reusable Object Models. Martin Fowler, Addison-Wesley Object Technology series, ©1996. This book discusses how to create useful models and also how to structure these models to make them more robust. Strongly recommended for any analyst's bookshelf.
• OMT Insights. James Rumbaugh, SIGS Books, ©1996. This book's chapters are reprints of Rumbaugh's JOOP series on perspectives in modeling. An excellent discussion on some of the finer but none-the-less important aspects of object modeling. This is not a how-to book but will be very helpful to the analyst-practitioner who is faced with many seemingly equivalent representations of the same concept. Understanding the trade-offs of various representations is critical to becoming a better modeler and analyst. Don't let the now outdated OMT (Object Modeling Technique—one of the predecessors to UML) in the title put you off. The issues discussed in this book are still vital ones.
• Writing Effective Use Cases. Alistair Cockburn, Addison-Wesley Publishing, ©2000. A very good overview of use case modeling and authoring with a strong bias towards text representations.

Task Analysis

• A Guide to Task Analysis. B. Kirwan and L. K. Ainsworth, editors, Taylor and Francis, ©1992. This book is considered the definitive overview of task analysis for the social sciences.
• Object-Oriented Software Engineering A Use Case Driven Approach. Ivar Jacobson, Magnus Christerson, Patrik Jonsson, and Gunnar Övergaard, Addison-Wesley ACM Press series, ©1992. This book is included here because it is the only depth treatment of Jacobson's Entity, Control and Interface (now Entity, Control, and Boundary) architectural distinction. This is also an excellent discussion of use case and scenario based modeling.

Process

• The Unified Software Development Process. Ivar Jacobson, Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh, Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series, ©1999. Since it comes from the three amigos, this book is the de facto standard for software engineering process. The book contains an excellent overview of software engineering from the perspective of the object-technologist. What's missing is the perspective of the many other participants in the process, especially the business analyst.

Cognitive Psychology

• Human Problem Solving. Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon, Prentice-Hall, ©1972. This seminal work on human problem solving also provides a readable introduction to the topic.
• Unified Theories of Cognition. Allen Newell, Harvard Press, ©1990. This book is something of an intellectual book-end to Human Problem Solving as it was written near the end of Newell's career. This book tends to be both more theoretical and more synthetic. A very thought-provoking treatment of semantic versus procedural knowledge.
• Thinking, Problem Solving, Cognition. Richard E. Mayer, Freeman, ©1983. This book provides an undergraduate overview of those aspects of cognitive psychology related to problem solving.
• The Architecture of Cognition. John R. Anderson, Harvard Press, ©1983. This is an excellent introductory text on cognitive psychology.

Look-and-Feel

User interface designers should always have the style guide for the platform or platforms on which you work. This is mandatory if you are authoring a corporate (or other specific organization's) style guide.
• The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design. Microsoft, Microsoft Press, ©1995.

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