Designing Effective Wizards - A Multidisciplinary Approach

-- By the team of experts that designed IBM's enterprise-wide standards for wizard user interfaces.

-- Practical checklists, step-by-step guidance, concrete examples, and case studies.

-- CD-ROM contains multi-platform examples from the book.

This is the first "nuts and bolts" how-to guide for building wizards that help users perform complex tasks in software. Written by the IBM team that has standardized wizard development across a wide range of software products and families, the book brings together the wisdom of usability experts, programmers, technical writers, and other disciplines. The step-by-step guidance it offers is designed to work equally well on any contemporary platform, from IBM mainframes to Windows, Unix/Linux, Java, and Web-based applications alike. Designing Effective Wizards: A Multidisciplinary Approach outlines a practical set of processes and methods for effective wizard design, identifying key issues and problems encountered during the design process -- and IBM's best solutions. The authors introduce the concept and goals of wizards; then explain how to gather requirements, prototype wizards, and evaluate designs. The book contains three detailed case studies, as well as practical checklist for planning wizard projects.