The bloopers include mistakes in window design, labelling consistency, visual/grammatical parallel construction, coherence of look and feel, and clarity. Most perceptively, Johnson observes that CPU speed in the development group hides many design mistakes. Moreover, context-scoping, already a subtle problem in software design, must be implemented in GUI design. Input error handling is the most psychologically sensitive of all GUI design characteristics. User error messages can easily be too vague or too specific, and diagnostic error messages should be user manageable, if not actually user interpretable.

Like the Hollywood out-takes that gave us the "blooper", the entertainment quotient here is measured in mistakes, not successes. Teaching by counter example rather than by example at an estimated ratio of 3:1, Johnson panders to our invertebrate instinct to measure our own successes by someone else's failure. To his credit, he recognises that User Interfaces include pedestrian texts (like his) as well as graphical interfaces for computer applications. His self-referential style gives the book an egocentric slant, but he is both priest and practitioner: he submitted a draft to usability testers and reports the results in as an appendix. One criticism was of too many negative examples. Hmmm.

Thanks to other tester comments, GUI Bloopers is a browsable book, allowing the few nuggets of wisdom to be located. For the most part, the book's value can be captured by reading the seven page table of contents carefully. --Peter Leopold

Review
"Better read this book, or your design will be featured in Bloopers II. Seriously, bloopers may be fun in Hollywood outtakes, but no movie director would include them in the final film. So why do we find so many bloopers in shipped software? Follow Jeff Johnson as he leads the blooper patrol deep into enemy territory: he takes no prisoners but reveals all the design stupidities that users have been cursing over the years."
—Jakob Nielsen, Usability Guru, Nielsen Norman Group

"If you are a software developer, read this book, especially if you don't think you need it. Don't worry, it isn't filled with abstract and useless theory--this is a book for doers, code writers, and those in the front trenches. Buy it, read it, and take two sections daily."
—Don Norman, President, UNext Learning Systems

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