Upcoming O'Reilly Book - Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions

Update: Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions is now available on Amazon for pre-order. Planned release is December/January timeframe.

Since about February Theresa Neil & I have been actively writing a new book for O'Reilly.

This is part of a group of books O'Reilly is publishing around Design. Designing Interfaces is an excellent book on Design Patterns by Jenifer Tidwell. Designing Gestural Interfaces will be coming out soon by Dan Saffer. Jenifer's book did an amazing job of cataloging desktop and web design patterns. Dan's book focuses on all of the new and upcoming interactions around gesture based interfaces.

Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions focuses strictly on a set of six principles for designing Web applications to be highly interactive.

The six principles are:

1. Make it Direct
2. Keep it Lightweight
3. Stay on the Page
4. Provide an Invitation
5. Use Transitions
6. Be Reactive

The principles are illustrated by a series of design patterns called out in various chapters shown here in a table of contents.

Principle One: Make it Direct

• Chapter 1. In Page Editing
• Chapter 2. Drag and Drop
• Chapter 3. Direct Selection

Principle Two: Keep it Lightweight

• Chapter 4. In-Context Tools

Principle Three: Stay on the Page

• Chapter 5. Overlays
• Chapter 6. Inlays
• Chapter 7. Virtual Pages
• Chapter 8. Workflow

Principle Four: Provide an Invitation

• Chapter 9. Static Invitations
• Chapter 10. Interactive Invitations

Principle Five: Use Transitions

• Chapter 11. Transition Patterns
• Chapter 12. Purpose of Transitions

Principle Six: React Immediately

• Chapter 13. Lookup
• Chapter 14. Status

Appendix: Design Patterns

I have finished the first draft of the book and am now working my way back through the book. Hopefully it will start technical reviews in a couple of weeks. No definite word on when the book will be on the bookshelf -- but I will update as we nail down that date.

I am also setting up a companion site, http://designingwebinterfaces.com. Currently this is just parked with a generic placeholder.