About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design vs Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules
When comparing About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design vs Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules, the Slant community recommends About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design for most people. In the question“What are the best books for Developers?” About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design is ranked 7th while Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design is:
The first edition of About Face was published in 1995, and has been referenced in a variety of work since then. It's in-depth coverage of of interaction design make it a well known reference book in the industry. The author, [Alan Cooper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cooper), is a pioneer of interaction design.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Well known book and author
The first edition of About Face was published in 1995, and has been referenced in a variety of work since then. It's in-depth coverage of of interaction design make it a well known reference book in the industry.
The author, Alan Cooper, is a pioneer of interaction design.
Pro Comprehensive guide
About Face takes an in-depth look at a breadth of topics relevant to interaction design. It covers everything from personal development and psychology to methods and further resources.
It's a large book at 720 pages for the fourth edition, and packed with information.
Pro Covers improving development schedules in detail
The author discusses how haste and unrealistic schedules will negatively impact a project. Causing the deadline to extend well past what it could have, had a realistic time frame been put in place initially.
Pro Focused on implementable lessons
Rather than discuss only the theory behind leadership, and author focuses on providing real examples and lessons that can be applied.
Pro Lists out "Best Practices" to summarize the lessons
This is a large book at 680 pages, so having the lessons summed up is quite beneficial. 27 "Best Practices" are discussed, including the pros and cons of them.
Cons
Con Terrible binding
The fourth edition has had an issue with binding quality. There has been many reports of the book falling apart when opened or after a very short period of time.
Con Use of pseudo-terms
Con Outdated methodologies
This book was published in 1996 and discusses methodologies that were popular at the time (such as the waterfall model).
