Learning the Art of GUI Design...

Like many of you, I spend the vast majority of my time working on backend code. Hacking infrastructure libraries, EJBs, web framework code and all the unit tests that live along side them.

One thing I don’t have, and have never really had, is any real sense of GUI design. Even in my VB days, I was the king of the FrankenGUI. But since getting so pumped about SWT (after reading the excellent The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace) and then finding the most incredible GUI tool on the planet (SWT Designer) - I’ve come to realise I’m learning all the tech of GUI design without the softer “arty” design and usability skills.

To that end, I’ve bought a copy of GUI Bloopers by Jeff Johnson. Despite the terrible name, this book is actually designed for programmers without GUI skills to learn the basics of usable design. Don’t be turned off by the title, there is a gold mine of info in here, and I’m really excited about learning some basic design skills that can help sharpen my new GUI passion.

Anyone else got any good resources/ideas for learning the skills of a slick and usable GUI design?