A few months ago I had come across Theresa Neil’s and Bill Scott’s book: Designing Web Interfaces. If you’re a web designer or UX designer I would definitely pick it up. The book describes 75 design patters and solutions to common interaction design problems… all of these revolve around 6 principles: “Make it direct”, “Keep it lightweight”, “Stay on the page”, “Provide an invitation”, “Use transitions” and “React immediately”. This is not really a design book but more of a reference guide in how to tackle interaction and transitions in the web. Definitely one of the most helpful and easy to understand books I’ve purchased on the subject.

Here’s a few “tips” from the book:
- use a single click for online applications (unless the application is supposed to mimic a desktop app)
- carousels are best for featured or recent content or small sets of time based content
- never use browser overlays! (expensive and ugly)
- fill blank site areas with invites for the user to interact with the site/ad content