Textbook of Usability

1936 to 2022, Austria and USA · Architect and design theorist; influential beyond architecture in software design

Also known as: Christopher Wolfgang Alexander

Christopher Alexander trained in mathematics and architecture at Cambridge and Harvard, and spent most of his career at the University of California, Berkeley. His 1977 book A Pattern Language, written with Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein, organised 253 named patterns of building and town design (from the scale of regions and cities down to alcoves and door handles) into a generative grammar that ordinary people, not just architects, could use to make humane places.

The book's structure (named, repeatable solutions to recurring problems, each linked to other patterns at larger and smaller scales) directly inspired the design patterns movement in software engineering pioneered by the Gang of Four in 1994. Alexander's later The Nature of Order (four volumes, 2002 to 2004) argued that living structure obeys fifteen identifiable properties that can be taught and reproduced. His influence on software, urban planning and design pedagogy has continued to grow since his death.