Dr. Dobb's Journal, January 2006
Aspect-Oriented Analysis and Design: The Theme Approach
Siobhan Clarke and Elisa Baniassad
Addison-Wesley, 2005
366 pp., $49.99
ISBN 0321246748
Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers
Sarah Horton
New Riders, 2005
288 pp., $24.99
ISBN 032131140X
Aspect-Oriented Analysis and Design: The Theme Approach, by Siobhan Clarke and Elisa Baniassad, offers exactly this, and mostly succeeds in making a case for the problem and demonstrating its solution. Theme is formed by two parts: Theme/Doc, a technique to distill aspects from plaintext requirements, and Theme/UML, a UML extension for designing and weaving aspects. Together, Theme/Doc and Theme/UML transform requirements documents into design specifications (which, incidentally, do not need to be programmed in an aspect-oriented language).
The book relies on a medium-sized example and develops it throughout the text, emphasizing its fine points to demonstrate the way Theme works. Two appendices also illustrate its techniques at work in different case studies, further clarifying the approach. For a field that is still as academic as this (you can preview the current debate in the first chapter), this insistence on practical examples is refreshing.
Yes, Aspect-Oriented Analysis and Design does advocate for aspect orientation. It highlights its benefits while being light on its drawbacks (theme composition, in particular, can become problematic). However, its claims are reasonable, and its techniques relatively easy to use. If you're looking for a good introduction to AO analysis and design techniques, this is the book for you.
—J.A.
Web site accessibility is too often something that is hacked in as an afterthought, once a site has been created. In Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers, Sarah Horton advocates designing for usability right from the start, not just for users with disabilities, but for all users, to provide the best experience. If only she had enough content to make a whole book of it, it would be a welcome addition to the collection of accessible-design books on the market.In a book with 264 pages, there are maybe 30 pages of real content, the rest consisting of excessive repetition of basic concepts and vague statements about what the Internet is and how people use it. Each chapter begins with an introduction, which is really a summary of the chapter to follow, and is then broken down into sections that are a few paragraphs long, each beginning with an introductory paragraph, and ending with an "In a Nutshell" summary section. By the time you are 20 pages into the book, many of the concepts have been explained about 10 times. Putting the summaries at the end of the chapter instead of every other paragraph would have made the whole thing more readable and less tiresome.
The hints and tips are useful things to consider, such as designing simply and giving users the most control, but there are no specific examples or how-tos, leaving you to turn somewhere else to figure out how to accomplish the task. Repeatedly, Horton talks about using CSS for layout, but never do we see a sample CSS page for reference. We see plenty of screenshots of web sites, but nowhere to turn to figure out how to actually do the thing in question—something that would have made the book much more valuable, and the content would have filled out the book without feeling so thinly stretched.
Horton seems to be confused about who her audience is, sometimes practically writing for people who have never seen the Internet before, while at the same time assuming that people will know how to add captions to play alongside their video clips, or provide alternative navigation methods.
One plus that you don't normally find in an accessibility book is her discussion on editorial style as an accessibility issue; this point is often overlooked, but writing in accessible language can be just as important for users as providing alternate navigation or visual elements.
Overall, it is written more from the viewpoint of universal usability, as if for designing physical objects, which does not entirely transfer into the technical area she is going for. If you are going to get the book, by all means read the appendix of "In a Nutshell" summaries for its useful ideas about accessible design, but do not bother trying to read it cover to cover. There isn't enough content to make it worth your time.
—L.M.
DDJ