Conversation

Andy Matuschak
@andy_matuschak
Why are there no "standard texts" on designing software interfaces? (or tell me I'm wrong?) If you want to learn to *build* software, there are excellent and complete texts on the subject. It's not just a tech-vs-art thing: there are standard texts on type, drawing, color, etc.
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Ben Kuhn
@benskuhn
Some other hypotheses: • There are way fewer UI designers than programmers (maybe ~5% as many per some quick Googling) so you'd expect ~5% as many books, which is maybe <1? • Programming is closer to writing than UI design is, so programmers are more likely to write books
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Ben Kuhn
@benskuhn
Yeah this was a third hypothesis—even programming is a bit older than UI design! (Or at least, programming books from 30y ago are more likely to be still relevant and non-outdated.)
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Mek
@mekarpeles
Replying to
@andy_matuschak
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@benskuhn
Many books on visual graphics / art don't require complex mathematical constraint systems to run on computational logic. Whenever I look at the top of a C header on a GNU/Linux program like "ls", I shiver, knowing how many vars exist to achieve compatibility across platforms.
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