The Smashing Book review continued

Part 3 RIA interfaces and the Ask the Expert chapter

A bit more commuting and a bit more of the review.

User Interface Design In Modern Applications

This chapter was written by Dmitry Fadyev who also wrote the chapter Design to Sell. He is a fine writer and good at succinct explanations of terms that may puzzle the reader. His definition of affordance on p14 is a good example of this. I read another explanation just today and it paled in comparison.
The information in the chapter sums up the principles of interface design in a very useful manner. Then he rips into a series of examples of practical techniques very neatly illustrated with screenshots. He ends this wonderful chapter with a most encouraging exhortation to keep on improving the choices you make and the products you churn out.

Learning from experts: interviews and insights

Steven Snell has put together an interesting selection of experts for this chapter. Most of them I know from their blogs, but a few I have never heard of before. Their bona fides are provided just in case you need proof of their expert status
The questions are well thought out several opinions are provided for each. Some of the advice I found personally useful, but the real value for me is insights that I can pass on to my students. My teaching is based on my own experience of creating web sites. It is really validating for me to see that so many of my experiences are shared – Chris Coyier provides some good responses (his blog post Designers these days is just so good for convincing my students there is more to the biz than coding). I enjoyed hearing from Nathan Smith as well.
This section of the book is long but worth the read. I did find my self wishing that the questions stood out more distinctly on the page as when you are skimming for answers to a particular question, it can be difficult to pick them out from the bulk of the text.

Work is starting in earnest now so more commuting and hopefully more reviews!