About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design

"Interaction design" instead of "user interface design"
"aphorism" and "axiom" instead of "principle"
"Subject Matter Experts" instead of "expert users"
"Ethnographic Interviews" instead of just "interviews"
"Personas" instead of "user profiles"

The list goes on and on. Almost every other page introduces some new or uncommon term to be included in the jargon to be used by this new profession that Cooper wants to create.

Personally, I think this book makes some really good points that deserve to be heard. Unfortunately, those "tender morsels" are buried in so much diatribe that most of the people who read the book are likely to miss them.

I hope the authors get busy soon on a "About Face 3.0" edition that eliminates at least a third of the text and replaces the academic "high-brow" vernacular with common words and phrases that are already in common use. They also need to provide more examples of potential solutions to the problems that they point out.

In the meantime, I cant honestly recommend this book.

Also, the authors feel the need to pepper the user with "big words" in what appears to be an attempt to make themselves sound smarter. Look at one of the other reviews where the reviewer actually documents some of these usages. The reader is advised to have a dictionary handy when reading this book.

Another problem I have with this book is that the authors like to talk about software usability problems yet in many cases offer no solutions or ideas on how to fix them. Whats the point in bringing up a negative if you cant offer up a solution? If all the author is going to do is complain about something, why would anyone buy the book?

What is really unfortunate about this book, aside from the fact that I wasted $25 on it, is that the authors do raise some valid points but these are lost amidst all the wordy blather that is so prevalent.

One thing for sure is that in the future, I will think long and hard before I purchase any book authored by Cooper and/or Reimann.

It is my opinion that 70% of this book is a waste of paper and served no other purpose than to get the page count up to justify the price. Also, the authors seem to get some perverse enjoyment out of using obscure and unrecognizable words in order to sound more intelligent and give their book a college textbook feel. And the lack of examples for many of the problems they cite is inexcusable. If youre going to bring up a problem, then offer up a solution. Many times they fail to do this.

Its unfortunate that the authors failed so miserably in the delivery of their message because of their overall poor writing style since they do bring up some valid points. As a developer, I agree that software in general has to be made more user-friendly and have seen first hand many of the problems the authors cite throughout the book. I think they would have succeeded in bringing more developers around to their way of thinking if they would have just changed the delivery of their message.

One thing that will come from reading this book is that in the future, I will refrain from purchasing any book authored by Cooper and/or Reimann.