It's so easy: usability & user-experience in web application's development

It's so easy: usability & user-experience in web application's development is my second book and it cost me 6 months to finish it.

In china, there're so many graphic designers don't know (or have misunderstanding with) the User-Interface Design. In this Web 2.0 time which emphasizing interaction and user-experience, you don't know these stuff means you're outdated. And the Chinese design will hardly achieve NOTHING if there're too many outdated designers in China. I myself had no idea about UI Design just 2 years ago, but I found its importance when I came into contact with it at first sight. It's a treasure the knowledge I learned in this field and it'll be nice if I can share this treasure with more people. So this is the original intention that I wrote the book.

This book is not like those highly professional monographs. My purpose is to lead more people to get on the doorstep, to have a complete picture of the UI/UE field. However, the book is still very all-around and dealing with everything about UI/UE.

I found those dry teaching materials are very disgusting when I was learning. I know those writers want to teach something, but they should think about the experience of the learners (or readers). This is the very meaning of Usability. Those hardly-reading books have very low usability and they're NOT good books. So I tried my best to make the words more carefree, conceive many interesting scenes and illustrations and narrate the theories like in a tea party when I was writing the book.

I'm proud of that all the illustrations in this book are drew by myself. The colorful pages worth everything I paid out during the illustrating.

Many thanks to these people! They're:

• Rokey (creative conductor of Eico Design)
• White Crow (famous consultant of product design)
• Ms. Tian (UI Design Center manager of Corporate Technology)
• H++ (UE Designer in ATC Studios, Microsoft China)
• Peter Qu (UE Engineer in Ourgame)

I hope they've received the books I sent out.

Following is the brief introduction of the book written by myself (the original is Chinese):

In this book, I'll talk with you guys about the application of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI for short) in Web Design field.

As you may see, this is a technology theories book with...carefree words and funny illustrations.

That's right, technology theories. We'll discuss about the relationship between the users and the interface of the softwares (or web sites) - yes YOU did the interface, but USERS use the software - so don't think you are fearless, let's defer to the attitude of the users. From this book you'll know how's the process going, what should I notice, and finally success will come when conditions are ripe.

This book is for everybody especially those UI designers who were not trained with the HIC and Usability study, and it's a tutorial and guide book. You needn't recite those tongue-twister-like vocabularies, only you have to know is "what should I do" then solve the problems. It itslef is a great principle of HIC - "It's easy to learn, then it's easy to use."

Now you see. This book is neither a dramatic fiction, nor a poem-like prose. But I still hope it can bring joy for us - learning essentially is not a boring thing, but many people made it boring. Mass of technology theories book writers they just starighten their clothes and sitting properly like some serious teachers...It can't be denied that we should be precise when facing the academic issues, but precise is NOT serious. Those teachers who can amuse everybody in the teaching are great teachers.

Maybe I haven't done well yet, but I'm trying.

"It's so easy: usability & user-experience in web application's development"
by: Mess
Price: ￥79.0
Paperback: 301 pages
Publisher: Tsinghua University Publish House; 1 edition (June 1, 2008)
Language: Chinese
ISBN-13: 978-7-302-16999-4

You can find this book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.cn/dp/bkbk834363

Flash Groupware, Game-making & Encryption

Well this is the first book of mine (even there're other 3 co-authors). When Chen, the editor of Tsinghua University Publish House found Xia and me and told us they wanted us to write a book about flash games, we thought from the bottom of our hearts that there're really plenty of chances in Beijing.

This book, Flash Groupware, Game-making & Encryption, is written for intermediate and advanced developers of flash applications. As you see from the name of the book, there're 3 parts in it, and Xia and I took charge of the main body. The other 2 guys explained the groupware and encryption with their opinions. In this book, I introduced flash games' history, development, its advantages and disadvantages, and how to design and make a flash game (including with design, system creating, arts and sounds).

Writing is so hard, but we still finished, a great piece of work. Only one thing disappointed me is the ugly cover design!

Following is the prologue of the book written by myself (the original is Chinese):

Macromedia Flash, as one of the most popular develop tools, is becoming more and more favourite by developers like us. We make animations with it, and also make interactional applications with it. This Object-Oriented software integrated with lots of media and devices can realize the extraordinary creativities of most un-expert users. The most obvious example of it is the game applications developing with Flash. Xia and I met each other at the end of 2005, then we founded the GameWitch Studio, trying to make some flash games having both artistry and entertainment, and actually we made a hit in a way. But, it's not enough that just exploring by ourselves. It needs everybody to construct and maintain together, it needs more new blood to struggle hand in hand.

We hope everyone can have the courage to come together and carry forward the spirit of "DIY (Do it Yourself)". Although the GameWitch Studio is far away from its top, we still have accumulated lots of experience of game-making. It'll be wonderful if we can find some way to pack up our ideas and thoughts, release them and share with everyone.

It's fortunate that the editor of this book, Chen, contacted with us and gave us the chance. Chen is a knowledgable and exigent expert, and full of patience. He knew the hardship of writting in spare time, so he gave us plenty of time to write and modify, encourage us frequently and gave us lots of suggestions. As a result this book has been published and opened by you. We have to admit that at the beginning we had no ideas of the joys and sorrows of its birth, and surely we shall earn much from the frustration and challenges which we have experienced in the course of writting this book.

In this book, we'll explain the concept of groupware in Flash, and how to make and use them, then we'll talk about how to develop fancy Flash games, at the final we'll tell something theories about the protecting of files and encryption. In the Part III, we'll show 3 complete processes of Flash game-making (including with design, art and script design) to explain how to create original system, express the splendid esthetics and bring up nice programming thoughtways, canonical and compact code. And the same important thing, we'll also explain how can all these come together harmoniously.

Developing Flash games is not very difficult, and we wish that you can make acquainted with the mystery of game-making through this book, then create your brilliant works. We wish we can contribute ourselves to every Flash fans to move forward, step by step.

"Flash Groupware, Game-making & Encryption"
by: Xia/Mess/Yu/Gao
Price: ￥59.0
Paperback: 472 pages
Publisher: Tsinghua University Publish House; 1 edition (June 1, 2007)
Language: Chinese
ISBN-13: 978-7-302-15224-8

You can find this book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.cn/dp/zjbk569489