Back

EffectiveUI Releases “Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software”

New book, published by O’Reilly Media, provides a complete roadmap to building groundbreaking software centered on user experience (UX) quality

Denver, Colo. – (February 9, 2010)

News Facts

EffectiveUI today released “Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software.” The book was written to help:

• business and product managers successfully build and fund innovative products.
• software professionals more easily advance the cause of better UX in their companies and with their clients.
• anyone striving to advocate and deliver on the promise of higher quality software.

Authored by Jonathan Anderson and John McRee of EffectiveUI, in conjunction with Robb Wilson, the book explains how a focus on user experience is essential as software users increasingly expect effortless, engaging interaction with desktop, Web and mobile applications.

The book covers all aspects of how to create superior UX, from the initial concept to deployment. It also explores the business, project management, design and engineering considerations that must work in tandem along the way.

By presenting real UX projects that EffectiveUI undertook with National Geographic and Herff Jones, the book demonstrates how the principles discussed can be applied to overcome UX challenges and to meet UX opportunities.

Key Facts about “Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software”

With already more than 1,200 copies sold in the presale, this book is written for anyone looking for a complete roadmap to successfully develop groundbreaking software for their clients, customers, employees or consumers where the quality of the user experience is of paramount importance.

“Effective UI” joins O’Reilly’s animal series of books and features a Rainbow Lorikeet on its cover.

The book costs $44.99 and is available at major retailers such as Amazon.com and through O’Reilly Media at oreilly.com. It is also available on iTunes for $4.99.

Key Themes

Benefits of good UX:

• Helps readers understand what good UX is, what it accomplishes and why it matters
• Focusing a project around UX improves usability, overall success and reduces uncertainty and risk

Planning projects for success:

• Recommends approaches to understanding and measuring the business value of a good UX
• Gives advice on how to win support for good UX by educating key stakeholders and taking positive steps to ensure their continued support for the project
• Exposes the weaknesses of traditional project approaches, and recommeds better ways to plan, design and build projects

Success through user interaction:

• Underscores the importance of focusing project goals on user-centered design to ensure high-quality results
• Explains importance and value of user research, key concepts underlying it, its goals and methodologies, and how to combat pressures to skip it

Improving project methodology:

• Shows readers how to apply UX-focused development methodologies and iterative development concepts to a product’s unified design and engineering
• Emphasizes importance of collaboration among designers, engineers, stakeholders and users throughout a product’s development

Adoption, measurement and review:

• Describes what needs to be done after a product has been released, including gaining adoption and measuring the product’s performance
• Explains how to use early project criteria to measure product success and gain lessons for the future

Supporting Quotes

“Creating exceptional software to drive business value and increase brand strength from concept to deployment is an art,” said John McRee, lead experience architect at EffectiveUI. “Unlike building a bridge, where engineers can clearly and precisely plan for the challenges ahead of them, the process of software development is more comparable to that of war, where the battlefield is complex, dynamic and unpredictable. In ‘Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software,’ we discuss the difficulties associated with traditional planning and project requirements, how to embrace uncertainty and the unknown when developing software and the importance of adaptable as opposed to rigid project requirements.”

“Using practical examples, ‘Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software’ serves as a valuable resource for software development professionals who want to learn more about the business value a good user experience can bring to any software development project and how best to implement a UX strategy within your organization,” said Joe Wikert, general manager and publisher for O’Reilly Media, Inc. “We are very pleased to add this to our esteemed list of titles that provide tangible advice for overcoming today’s software design and development challenges.”

Additional Resources

Follow Effective UI updates on Twitter: @uitweet

Order “Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software”

Check out EffectiveUI’s Web page full of assets from and about the book

About EffectiveUI

Founded in 2005, EffectiveUI is an award-winning, user-centered design and development agency that specializes in the creation and implementation of custom Web, mobile and desktop applications. EffectiveUI merges innovative technologies with expertise in user experience strategy, design and development to help today’s most respected brands deepen customer engagement through more exceptional software experiences. The company’s applications deliver competitive advantages, increase customer satisfaction and loyalty and produce measurable results. EffectiveUI has developed groundbreaking applications for organizations such as National Geographic, eBay, GE Health, NBC Universal, Viacom and Discovery Channel. It has earned an Adobe Gold Partner distinction and membership in Microsoft’s Global 20 Agency Partners. In September, Inc. magazine ranked EffectiveUI No. 55 on its 28th annual list of America’s fastest growing private companies — the Inc. 500.

Media Contact:
Jill Petersen
Director of Public Relations, EffectiveUI
206.683.5225
Email Jill

Back