UX Strategy
User experience (UX) strategy requires a careful blend of business strategy and UX design, but until now, there hasn't been an easy-to-apply framework for executing it. This hands-on guide introduces lightweight strategy tools and techniques to help you and your team craft innovative multi-device products that people want to use. Whether you're an entrepreneur, UX/UI designer, product manager, or part of an intrapreneurial team, this book teaches simple-to-advanced strategies that you can use in your work right away. Along with business cases, historical context, and real-world examples throughout, you'll also gain different perspectives on the subject through interviews with top strategists. Define and validate your target users through provisional personas and customer discovery techniques; Conduct competitive research and analysis to explore a crowded marketplace or an opportunity to create unique value; Focus your team on the primary utility and business model of your product by ...
User experience (UX) strategy requires a careful blend of business strategy and UX design, but until now, there hasn't been an easy-to-apply framework for executing it. This hands-on guide introduces lightweight strategy tools and techniques to help you and your team craft innovative multi-device products that people want to use. Whether you're an entrepreneur, UX/UI designer, product manager, or part of an intrapreneurial team, this book teaches simple-to-advanced strategies that you can use in your work right away. Along with business cases, historical context, and real-world examples throughout, you'll also gain different perspectives on the subject through interviews with top strategists. Define and validate your target users through provisional personas and customer discovery techniques; Conduct competitive research and analysis to explore a crowded marketplace or an opportunity to create unique value; Focus your team on the primary utility and business model of your product by ...
Effective Modern C++
Coming to grips with C++11 and C++14 is more than a matter of familiarizing yourself with the features they introduce (e.g., auto type declarations, move semantics, lambda expressions, and concurrency support). The challenge is learning to use those features effectively - so that your software is correct, efficient, maintainable, and portable. That's where this practical book comes in. It describes how to write truly great software using C++11 and C++14 - i.e. using modern C++. Topics include: The pros and cons of braced initialization, noexcept specifications, perfect forwarding, and smart pointer make functions; The relationships among std::move, std::forward, rvalue references, and universal references; Techniques for writing clear, correct, effective lambda expressions; How std::atomic differs from volatile, how each should be used, and how they relate to C++'s concurrency API; How best practices in "old" C++ programming (i.e., C++98) require revision for software development in m ...
Coming to grips with C++11 and C++14 is more than a matter of familiarizing yourself with the features they introduce (e.g., auto type declarations, move semantics, lambda expressions, and concurrency support). The challenge is learning to use those features effectively - so that your software is correct, efficient, maintainable, and portable. That's where this practical book comes in. It describes how to write truly great software using C++11 and C++14 - i.e. using modern C++. Topics include: The pros and cons of braced initialization, noexcept specifications, perfect forwarding, and smart pointer make functions; The relationships among std::move, std::forward, rvalue references, and universal references; Techniques for writing clear, correct, effective lambda expressions; How std::atomic differs from volatile, how each should be used, and how they relate to C++'s concurrency API; How best practices in "old" C++ programming (i.e., C++98) require revision for software development in m ...
Learning Web Design, 5th Edition
With the release of HTML5 and browsers that constantly update, HTML is experiencing a renaissance. CSS3 and the recent upgrades to JavaScript have also helped change the way we build striking and useful sites today. If you're new to web design, the thoroughly updated 5th edition of this no-nonsense guide provides everything you need to know to create professional websites. Ideal for beginners seeking a design-centric introduction to HTML and related standards, this practical book helps you: Learn the site development process from start to finish; Create a simple (X)HTML page, including links and images; Explore text formatting, colors and backgrounds, page layout, and more in CSS; Get your pages on the web, with information on hosting, domain names, and FTP. ...
With the release of HTML5 and browsers that constantly update, HTML is experiencing a renaissance. CSS3 and the recent upgrades to JavaScript have also helped change the way we build striking and useful sites today. If you're new to web design, the thoroughly updated 5th edition of this no-nonsense guide provides everything you need to know to create professional websites. Ideal for beginners seeking a design-centric introduction to HTML and related standards, this practical book helps you: Learn the site development process from start to finish; Create a simple (X)HTML page, including links and images; Explore text formatting, colors and backgrounds, page layout, and more in CSS; Get your pages on the web, with information on hosting, domain names, and FTP. ...
Running Lean, 2nd Edition
We live in an age of unparalleled opportunity for innovation. We're building more products than ever before, but most of them fail - not because we can't complete what we set out to build, but because we waste time, money, and effort building the wrong product. What we need is a systematic process for quickly vetting product ideas and raising our odds of success. That's the promise of Running Lean. In this inspiring book, Ash Maurya takes you through an exacting strategy for achieving a "product/market fit" for your fledgling venture, based on his own experience in building a wide array of products from high-tech to no-tech. Throughout, he builds on the ideas and concepts of several innovative methodologies, including the Lean Startup, Customer Development, and bootstrapping. Running Lean is an ideal tool for business managers, CEOs, small business owners, developers and programmers, and anyone who's interested in starting a business project. Find a problem worth solving, t ...
We live in an age of unparalleled opportunity for innovation. We're building more products than ever before, but most of them fail - not because we can't complete what we set out to build, but because we waste time, money, and effort building the wrong product. What we need is a systematic process for quickly vetting product ideas and raising our odds of success. That's the promise of Running Lean. In this inspiring book, Ash Maurya takes you through an exacting strategy for achieving a "product/market fit" for your fledgling venture, based on his own experience in building a wide array of products from high-tech to no-tech. Throughout, he builds on the ideas and concepts of several innovative methodologies, including the Lean Startup, Customer Development, and bootstrapping. Running Lean is an ideal tool for business managers, CEOs, small business owners, developers and programmers, and anyone who's interested in starting a business project. Find a problem worth solving, t ...
C++ The Core Language
C++ is an object-oriented enhancement of the C programming language and is becoming the language of choice for serious software development. C++ has crossed the Single Book Complexity Barrier. The individual features are not all that complex, but when put together in a program they interact in highly non-intuitive ways. Many books discuss each of the features separately, giving readers the illusion that they understand the language. But when they try to program, they're in for a painful surprise. C++: The Core Language is for C programmers transitioning to C++. It's designed to get readers up to speed quickly by covering an essential subset of the language. The subset consists of features without which it's just not C++, and a handful of others that make it a reasonably useful language. You can actually use this subset (using any compiler) to get familiar with the basics of the language. Once you really understand that much, it's time to do some programming and learn more from other bo ...
C++ is an object-oriented enhancement of the C programming language and is becoming the language of choice for serious software development. C++ has crossed the Single Book Complexity Barrier. The individual features are not all that complex, but when put together in a program they interact in highly non-intuitive ways. Many books discuss each of the features separately, giving readers the illusion that they understand the language. But when they try to program, they're in for a painful surprise. C++: The Core Language is for C programmers transitioning to C++. It's designed to get readers up to speed quickly by covering an essential subset of the language. The subset consists of features without which it's just not C++, and a handful of others that make it a reasonably useful language. You can actually use this subset (using any compiler) to get familiar with the basics of the language. Once you really understand that much, it's time to do some programming and learn more from other bo ...
iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual, 5th Edition
If you used iPhoto when it first came out, you'll remember the way it slowed to a crawl once you loaded it with about 2,000 photos. Compare that to this year's model: iPhoto 6 can handle as many as 250,000 images and still have the power to run a host of suped-up features. Its new software engine lets you make changes with a drag & drop editing tool, find photos with a robust search feature, and manipulate images without affecting the originals in your master library. Apple makes it all sound so easy: just drag this, click that and you're done. But, as intuitive as these features are, you can still get lost, especially if you're new to iPhoto. Not to worry. iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual gives you plenty of undocumented tips & tricks for taking advantage of the new version and every little feature packed into it. It's the top-selling iPhoto book for good reason. With wit and objectivity, David Pogue and Derrick Story start you out with a crash course on digital photography, complet ...
If you used iPhoto when it first came out, you'll remember the way it slowed to a crawl once you loaded it with about 2,000 photos. Compare that to this year's model: iPhoto 6 can handle as many as 250,000 images and still have the power to run a host of suped-up features. Its new software engine lets you make changes with a drag & drop editing tool, find photos with a robust search feature, and manipulate images without affecting the originals in your master library. Apple makes it all sound so easy: just drag this, click that and you're done. But, as intuitive as these features are, you can still get lost, especially if you're new to iPhoto. Not to worry. iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual gives you plenty of undocumented tips & tricks for taking advantage of the new version and every little feature packed into it. It's the top-selling iPhoto book for good reason. With wit and objectivity, David Pogue and Derrick Story start you out with a crash course on digital photography, complet ...
Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress may be the most complex video game ever made, but all that detail makes for fascinating game play, as various elements collide in interesting and challenging ways. The trick is getting started. In this guide, Fortress geek Peter Tyson takes you through the basics of this menacing realm, and helps you overcome the formidable learning curve. The book's focus is the game's simulation mode, in which you're tasked with building a dwarf city. Once you learn how to establish and maintain your very first fortress, you can consult the more advanced chapters on resource management and training a dwarf military. You'll soon have stories to share from your interactions with the Dwarf Fortress universe. Create your own world, then locate a site for an underground fortress; Equip your party of dwarves and have them build workshops and rooms; Produce a healthy food supply so your dwarves won't starve (or go insane); Retain control over a fortress and dozens of dwarves, their chil ...
Dwarf Fortress may be the most complex video game ever made, but all that detail makes for fascinating game play, as various elements collide in interesting and challenging ways. The trick is getting started. In this guide, Fortress geek Peter Tyson takes you through the basics of this menacing realm, and helps you overcome the formidable learning curve. The book's focus is the game's simulation mode, in which you're tasked with building a dwarf city. Once you learn how to establish and maintain your very first fortress, you can consult the more advanced chapters on resource management and training a dwarf military. You'll soon have stories to share from your interactions with the Dwarf Fortress universe. Create your own world, then locate a site for an underground fortress; Equip your party of dwarves and have them build workshops and rooms; Produce a healthy food supply so your dwarves won't starve (or go insane); Retain control over a fortress and dozens of dwarves, their chil ...
Articulating Design Decisions
Talking to people about your designs might seem like a basic skill, but it can be difficult to do efficiently and well. And, in many cases, how you communicate about your work with stakeholders, clients, and other non-designers is more critical than the designs themselves - simply because the most articulate person usually wins. This practical guide focuses on principles, tactics, and actionable methods for presenting your designs. Whether you design UX, websites, or products, you'll learn how to win over anyone who has influence over the project - with the goal of creating the best experience for the end user. Walk through the process of preparing for and presenting your designs; Understand stakeholder perspectives, and learn how to empathize with them; Cultivate both implicit and explicit listening skills; Learn tactics and formulas for expressing the most effective response to feedback; Discover why the way you follow through is just as crucial as the meeting itself; Educate y ...
Talking to people about your designs might seem like a basic skill, but it can be difficult to do efficiently and well. And, in many cases, how you communicate about your work with stakeholders, clients, and other non-designers is more critical than the designs themselves - simply because the most articulate person usually wins. This practical guide focuses on principles, tactics, and actionable methods for presenting your designs. Whether you design UX, websites, or products, you'll learn how to win over anyone who has influence over the project - with the goal of creating the best experience for the end user. Walk through the process of preparing for and presenting your designs; Understand stakeholder perspectives, and learn how to empathize with them; Cultivate both implicit and explicit listening skills; Learn tactics and formulas for expressing the most effective response to feedback; Discover why the way you follow through is just as crucial as the meeting itself; Educate y ...
Head First Ruby
What's all the buzz about this Ruby language? Is it right for you? Well, ask yourself: are you tired of all those extra declarations, keywords, and compilation steps in your other language? Do you want to be a more productive programmer? Then you'll love Ruby. With this unique hands-on learning experience, you'll discover how Ruby takes care of all the details for you, so you can simply have fun and get more done with less code. Based on the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory, Head First Ruby uses a visually rich format to engage your mind, rather than a text-heavy approach to put you to sleep. Why waste your time struggling with new concepts? This multi-sensory learning experience is designed for the way your brain really works. ...
What's all the buzz about this Ruby language? Is it right for you? Well, ask yourself: are you tired of all those extra declarations, keywords, and compilation steps in your other language? Do you want to be a more productive programmer? Then you'll love Ruby. With this unique hands-on learning experience, you'll discover how Ruby takes care of all the details for you, so you can simply have fun and get more done with less code. Based on the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory, Head First Ruby uses a visually rich format to engage your mind, rather than a text-heavy approach to put you to sleep. Why waste your time struggling with new concepts? This multi-sensory learning experience is designed for the way your brain really works. ...
The DAM Book, 2nd Edition
One of the main concerns for digital photographers today is asset management: how to file, find, protect, and re-use their photos. The best solutions can be found in The DAM Book, our bestselling guide to managing digital images efficiently and effectively. Anyone who shoots, scans, or stores digital photographs is practicing digital asset management (DAM), but few people do it in a way that makes sense. In this second edition, photographer Peter Krogh - the leading expert on DAM - provides new tools and techniques to help professionals, amateurs, and students: Understand the image file lifecycle (from shooting to editing, output, and permanent storage); Learn new ways to use metadata and key words to track photo files; Create a digital archive and name files clearly; Determine a strategy for backing up and validating image data; Learn a catalog workflow strategy, using Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw, Adobe Lightroom, Microsoft Expression Media, and Photoshop CS4 together; Migrate images ...
One of the main concerns for digital photographers today is asset management: how to file, find, protect, and re-use their photos. The best solutions can be found in The DAM Book, our bestselling guide to managing digital images efficiently and effectively. Anyone who shoots, scans, or stores digital photographs is practicing digital asset management (DAM), but few people do it in a way that makes sense. In this second edition, photographer Peter Krogh - the leading expert on DAM - provides new tools and techniques to help professionals, amateurs, and students: Understand the image file lifecycle (from shooting to editing, output, and permanent storage); Learn new ways to use metadata and key words to track photo files; Create a digital archive and name files clearly; Determine a strategy for backing up and validating image data; Learn a catalog workflow strategy, using Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw, Adobe Lightroom, Microsoft Expression Media, and Photoshop CS4 together; Migrate images ...