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Add to SafariWhen comparing Universal Principles of Design, by William Lidwell vs Design for hackers, the Slant community recommends Universal Principles of Design, by William Lidwell for most people. In the question“What are the best books on web design?” Universal Principles of Design, by William Lidwell is ranked 5th while Design for hackers is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Universal Principles of Design, by William Lidwell is:
Many of the theories presented in the book will already be familiar to designers. However this book backs up the theories with data, additional research and examples that encourage the designer to consider the theories in different ways.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Backs up well known theories
Many of the theories presented in the book will already be familiar to designers. However this book backs up the theories with data, additional research and examples that encourage the designer to consider the theories in different ways.
Pro Variety of theories
There are 125 different theories introduced in the book that cover a very wide range of relevant disciplines (such as psychology and biology).
Pro For programmers
The book is specifically written for developers who aren't sure how to approach design problems.
Cons
Con Theories are not described in depth
Each theory has two pages; one page with visual examples, and another page with a written description. These act more as an introduction to the various theories as they don't go into much depth.
Con Disjointed and hard to follow
Rather than providing proper context, and author frequently tries to tie points together by using backwards and forwards references ("As you've seen in chapter ___,").
Though there is a lot of interesting points throughout the book, nothing ties together so it can be hard to make sense of.
Con Too philosophical at times
The author goes into detail about things that would have been far better explained using practical examples.
For example, a rant on why Comic Sans is bad but no discussion on font selection for the context.
