Interaction design patterns

I do have 26 years old, and I'm still doing homeworks for school. But this time, I admit that the topic is useful.

I read a book about patterns. You probably know object oriented design patterns. There are patterns everywhere, to save us to reinvent the wheel.

Patterns I read is about interaction design. It's about usability of electronic devices. The goals are mainly :

• Design the interface as to make it familiar for users
  
• Reduce memory load on users to let them concentrate on their main task
• Reduce the time it takes to complete a task, navigate, find something
• Make the device fun, easy and efficient to use

The book is written by Jenifer Tidwell. It's a really good book, it contains what we need to know to start designing any UI. I did some empiricaly previously, and I would have saved so much time by reading this book first.

Now, I'm able to evaluate an interface. A bad interface make the user dig into deeply nested dialogs, let the user waiting without a clue that something is going on, etc. There are mistakes all over the place.

There are also good design out there. And to complete my homework, I will search for UI design patterns in KDE 4. That will be pretty cool to see how much it's usable. Stay tuned.