November 07, 2006

Book Review: Designing Interfaces

"I must admit that I am not a fan of pattern books in general - especially in the field of design. I've always felt they are excellent sources of inspiration if you’re crafting a quilt or stenciling a wainscot for your living room, but for more involved design activities, I've concluded they are too simplistic—perhaps even limiting. I suspect this opinion was informed by my architecture professor’s intensely negative reaction to Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language and A Timeless Way of Building when they were first published. Years later, when I learned that software engineers were enamored of Alexander's books, and the emergence of software patterns had its basis in Alexander's notion of design patterns, I was bemused and skeptical." (Leo Frishberg - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB at November 7, 2006 01:50 PM