Acknowledgments

This book wouldn’t have happened without the help and support of a number of people. First, I want to thank Lou Rosenfeld and the advisory board at Rosenfeld Media. I originally went to Lou with three different book topics. It just so happened he picked the one I was probably the least prepared to tackle—poetic how that happens. Thank you Rosenfeld Media for encouraging me to write this book. I really learned a lot in the process.

I hope every author out there is fortunate enough to have an editor who balances tradition with the willingness to try something new. My editor, Marta Justak, did just that. I can’t thank Marta enough for working with me on this book and ensuring that it stayed true to my vision.

I spent nine long months doing research for this book. I interviewed vendors and fellow practitioners, asked about their methods and tools, learned new tricks, and even persuaded some of them to contribute an insight or case study.

I’d like to thank the following people for contributing their wisdom to this book: Bill Scott of Netflix, Anders Ramsay an independent UX consultant, David Verba of Adaptive Path, Robert Reimann of frog design, Chris Pallé an independent UX consultant, Victor Hsu of Axure, Scott Mathews of Xplane, Tom Humbarger of iRise, Robert Hoekman, Jr. of Miskeeto, Joe Sokohl of Regular Joe Consulting, Nathan Curtis of EightShapes, Henk Wijnholds and Stefan Wobben of Concept7, Jonathan Baker-Bates of Expedia, and Fred Beecher of Evantage.

I also had a number of brilliant people who reviewed the chapters I wrote on specific methods and tools to make sure they were accurate. I’d like to thank Jeff Patton, an independent UX consultant and Agile coach, for reviewing my paper prototyping chapter, Anders Ramsay for reviewing my chapters on Visio and HTML, Alan Musselman Lead UI Designer and Fireworks Evangelist at Adobe for reviewing my chapter on Fireworks, and Fred Beecher for reviewing my chapter on Axure RP Pro.

And last, but most certainly not least, I’d like to thank my wife, Angela, for gently reminding me that this book wouldn’t write itself.

About the Author

Todd Zaki Warfel is the founder and principal designer at Messagefirst, a design consultancy focused on helping companies make products and services that are beautiful, useful, and a pleasure to use. Ask Todd what he does for a living, and he’ll tell you he’s just a designer. He believes design is a holistic practice, a craft, and like any great artisan, he takes great pride in his craft. He’s not one to debate the intricate differences between information architecture, interaction design, persuasion design, or service design—to him, it’s all just “Big D” design. Todd sees every problem as a design challenge, and a design challenge is an opportunity to fix something that’s broken. He’s a fixer. He can’t help himself. He’s rarely satisfied with the status quo and believes we can always do better, which is one of the reasons he became a designer.

A designer by trade, but not by education, Todd holds degrees in Cognitive Psychology and English Creative Writing. When he graduated college, the Web was still ruled by VAX terminals and books were still printed on paper.

Todd has been designing, building, and breaking things for over 15 years. He has been fortunate enough to design Web sites, Web apps, and other systems for clients such as AT&T Wireless, Bankrate, Citi, Comcast, Cornell, Numara, and New York University. An internally recognized thought leader on research and design, Todd has spoken at conferences and taught workshops around the globe. As a member of the Web Standards Project Education Task Force, Todd leads the effort for their prototyping curriculum.

Todd has a reputation as being a bit of a foodie and wine enthusiast. If you ever have the chance to go to dinner with him, chances are it will be a gastronomic adventure you won’t soon forget. He also has a professional racing license and hopes to one day get his pilot’s license.

Todd currently lives in Philadelphia with his beautiful wife, Angela, their new son, Elijah, and an English bulldog named Duchess. Todd blogs at http://zakiwarfel.com/ and twitters @zakiwarfel.