Human-Computer Interaction Books

I found this book in the library and thought it might be helpful for some research I'm conducting. The book wasn't what I hoped for. But, given that, it might deserve four stars for what it did do.

The author gives a painfully detailed description of Cybermind-an online community. The book details the political rants, sexist rants, and community building antics of Cybermind. The reader gets a behind the scenes examination into this online community and the resultant relationships that are established between the members. Excerpts of conversations (petty, boring, and sometimes interesting) are quoted.

This book's audience is a lay audience of people who are interested in online communities, friendships, communication, and the like. I didn't find any sections useful for my undergrads, but maybe a communications professor would?

On reading Downey's book, I was hard-pressed to tell exactly what kind of audience _The Machine In Me_ was aiming for. Too technical for most anthropologists and too loaded with anthropological jargon for most technology types, _The Machine In Me_ seems to fit only the narrow field of anthropological technology studies, thus depriving related audiences (general cultural anthropologists and techies) of its many interesting insights. Downey's examination of how a class of engineering students struggled, interacted, and in some ways became part of the CAD/CAM software with which they worked was fascinating. His success in communicating his sometimes complex observations about the social dynamics of technological fields and the nature of the students' relationships with the software, however, are obscured by unnecessarily complex and roundabout prose. Downey is left talking about "transcribing human agency into technology" without ever employing the clearly appropriate term "cyborg." In fact, Downey's book is unmistakably a work in the burgeoning field of cyborg anthropology, yet the book avoids all mention of the term. The end result, I think, is a book without a clearly defined audience, one that refuses to position itself inside a discipline and therefore is likely to be passed over by those who would benefit most from it.

Often people think of cyberspace in solely technological terms. This book attempts to look at the bigger picture of how it effects society. A good and thought provoking read. I would say that it is something that should be read to better understand the pervasive effect of what we call cyberspace today.

This book might be good for someone without health care or hospital experience, but after I looked through it and read its intended use, I realized that my 7 years of health care experience were probably much better than what the CDs could provide. I didn't even open the CDs.

Itýs hard to predict the future, especially when it comes to technology. Consider the prognosticators of the early 20th century who forecast personal space travel, the end of disease, and other wonders; yet largely missed the invention of computers. Consequently, Clabbyýs vision for the next generation internet should be read with equal doses of skepticism and optimism.

The premise is simple but intriguing: How will current technology trends shape the evolution of the internet? Clabbyýs answer is the Sensory Virtual Internet. SVI is an environment where keyboard interface with computers has been replaced by voice recognition, coupled with the ability of users to receive both tactile and scent stimuli as well. SVI is driven by advances in these particular technologies, as well as infrastructure development ý advances in graphics, solution of last-mile problems, and back-end systems.

The subtitle of the book is ýCollaboration, communication, and commerce in the 21st centuryý. One of the main drawbacks of the book is that not enough attention is given to embellishing his vision of the SVI. Rather, the discussion of individual components ý immersive video, body suits, and so on ý is neither very original nor very detailed. So, while Clabby talks about revolutionizing e-learning or spatially dispersed teams, the discussion of how this will happen is very superficial.

Instead, Clabby spends much of his time describing how the core technologies needed for the SVI are advancing. As a result, much of the book is spent describing tech trends as they relate to AI, broadband penetration, network and server capabilities, and so on. I expect that Clabbyýs purpose is to convince the reader that these technologies needed for the SVI are not pie-in-the-sky. Unfortunately, the book is short on facts and figures, and much of these trends have been better described elsewhere. Clabby also has a tendency to pull occasional material from company websites to illustrate these trends. I checked a number of these at random, and a significant number have disappeared (e.g., virtualcharacters.com or snortal.com). Start-ups come and go, but this book has just been published, and many of the exemplars of tomorrowýs technology are already defunct ý not an encouraging sign.

Two other issues are a cause for concern. First, Clabby focuses almost entirely on computers as the conduit to the internet. There are projections that non-PC devices will soon outnumber PCs, as the success of Pocket PCs and other handheld devices continues to grow. I have internet access on my iPAQ, and new cell phones offer similar capabilities. Tablet computers also lurk in the near-term future. I was hoping that Clabby would have discussed the implications of these type of appliance for the SVI, and vice versa.

The second limitation is his US-centric focus. There are many developments outside North America which are salient to the future of the internet. As one example, consider China. At one extreme, metropolitan Hong Kong has a residential broadband penetration rate well above that of the US. Concurrently, mainland China has surpassed Europe as the #2 market worldwide for residential internet users. In contrast to Hong Kong, these users typically rely on much slower connectivity and older infrastructure. As the geographic scope of the web expands, so will the variance of hardware and software profiles. What are the implications of this for broad SVI adoption? Separately, internet cafes and kiosks are springing up in many Third World nations. The pool of potential users would change substantially if literacy and keyboarding skills were no longer needed to access the web. Again, however, this interesting question is not addressed.

So, how realistic is Clabbyýs vision of the future? Ultimately, the question depends on the ability of these technologies to improve our lives. SVI could be the next big thing, or simply a passing fad ý does anyone remember the Three Stooges episodes in 3D, or the movies that were shown using ýSmell-O-Ramaý?

If the publisher had used softer paper, there would be a real use for this book

I got both books as a gift when a relative met the author and he suggested that they would make a good birthday present for me (some objective referral).

Both books are horrible, but this one is by far the worst.

I might just cut the spine and cover off this book and glue it to a different one. This way if my relative stops over she sees the title on my bookshelf and think it's not in the dumpster where it belongs.

I worked at one of the companies mentioned in the book and worked with or knew several of the characters personally. A co-worker actually turned me onto the book after she recognized my old company's name mentioned. I borrowed it and proceeded to catch up with what happened to these folks for the few years after Worldesign shut down.

While the few facts I can personally relate to are accurate, they do focus a great deal on emotion and bitterness and seem to take one person's accounts as gospel without balance from others. It does state many of the hidden trials of startups.

The writing style is weak. I found the plot disjoint and with too much coverage in some areas, and mostly too little development/depth in others. If I were to have read the book without personal knowledge of the people mentioned, I would have screamed for more character development.

I agree with the other reviewer that this is something you borrow from the library. It was a quick read.

Moody accurately captures the confusion, competition and corruption of the VRD circle -- as a VRD inventor myself I found the comments about Rutkowski as corrupt accurate -- was a bit surprised that he missed a few characters -- the MIT circle in particular. It provides an excellent lesson in Shakespearean intrigue and corporate politics.

This book is not badly written - I wouldn't say it's well written by any means but it's not bad. The thing that really galls one about the book are the characters - and unfortunately they're not fictitious. I hit rock bottom with the cast when I read about one "dreamer" who when presented with an opportunity to contribute a technological innovation to oceanographic research responded with the gushing realization that he could "make millions." Not that he might contribute something to humanity - but he might "make millions." It's a little hard to picture people primarily driven by a desire for money as "dreamers." Maybe the book should have been subtitled "The Digital Greedbags who are Hyping VR to Death."

If the point of the book is to lampoon the crass nature of the people in Seattle working on VR, it succeeds admirably. Somehow, however, I don't think that was intended to be the point. Read it only if you have a strong stomach for brainless greed, hype, and outright BS.

As with other Taschen books I've seen, this book is more high style photo essay on the rise of the computer age than a hard core "history". When viewed as a photo essay or cultural documentary of a particular subject (computers, in this case), it is very successful...and a bargain. Most other computer history books are mainly text and often lack photographs of early systems, particularly the early mainframes and minis. This book is packed with lavish photos well organized by computer type (mainframes, minicomputers, micros, etc.) While errors are unacceptable in any book, I feel the other negative reviews of this book are way too harsh, and probably result more from expectations being incorrectly set by the book's title. For a highly detailed history of the subject, readers should look elsewhere. But for a beautiful and rare look at the early systems, this book will be a welcome addition to your library. Or, have the best of both worlds....get a thorough history book for the details and facts, and this book to see what things looked like!

The book is easy to read. It has great illustrations. It is not an in-depth reading. If you want more information, you can look at Ceruzzi's (without illustrations), or, even better, Augarten's book. Augarten has done a great research effort. His books is enjoyable, and has lots of photographs. On the other hand, he begins his history from primitive calculators.

Wurster's book has very good hardback binding, and uses high quality gloss paper inside. I would redommend it for the price.

There are so many factual errors in this book that I simply threw the book in the garbage.

I first started working on both mainframes and personal computers in the 1970s, and have worked on a wide variety of machines.

The book has a number of errors, but is a wonderful buy for those of us who grew up with computers. It generally follows the right flow of creation, but is so superficial that there are errors. Those people looking to learn about the history of computers should avoid this. However, those of you looking to take a walk down memory lane will love the book and its pictures.

If you know the real stories, the pictures bring back lots of fun memories. If you don't know the real story, get some other books, you won't understand the pictures and the text isn't good enough.

Most books on the history of computing are dry treatises without a lot of good illustrations, but this one is different. More of an art book than serious history (see the other reviews) it presents the history of computing with a wonderful collection of large color illustrations, such as fantastic close-up shots of Engelbart's original mouse from 1968, hilariously weird UNIVAC ads from the '50s, rare & hard to find screen shots of early applications, as well as images from popular culture that reflected the computing mentality of the era. There are better books for the facts, but not many in league with this one for pure style.

I've just started reading this book for a university course and though I've only finished one chapter, I have to say that the writing is so poor that I would not recommend this book to anyone. I find myself continually having to re-read sentences because they are oddly worded. The omission of serial commas and the lack of semicolons in many lists containing the word "and" merely add to the confusion. There are many HCI books out there, so save yourself a headache and find one that's well written.

I really liked this book!

If you've been using this book (1994) and you want a revised edition, then take a look at our new book (2002) "Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction", jointly authored by Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers and Helen Sharp, published by John Wiley & Sons.

This book is an apology for bad science. Design must be a serious issue, but this book handles it in an amateur manner for soft-scientists. Imagine writing down your opinions in prose and casting it as facts: now imagine these opinions being set as examinable for students who could have better spent their time watching grass grow. As the Oscars cliche goes "Half an hour of the best entertainment spread over the next four hours".

IMO great for undergrad intro course on usability, and Human factors for CIS. Unlike many Usability books out there instead of why, it presents how and what.

My company just moved to Outlook 97 and we have just started using it for some of our groupware needs. The book provides good coverage of VB scripting that is required to fully manipulate the forms in Outlook. I am an intermediate level Access 97 programmer (no experience making client/server apps, just stand-alone apps) and the book seemed to be targeted just to my level. It helped me create some useful applications, such as a threaded discussion group (the first example) within 30 minutes!!! I am not done reading it, but I look forward to the examples at the end that incorporate/link Access 97 to Outlook 97 to automate tracking of responses to the applications that I will be making soon. This book is great because most other books that cover Outlook don't discuss handling of forms or VB scripting. This book does a nice job on this subject from a beginner's perspective.

This book claims to help the reader "use Outlook Forms to build groupware solutions - fast!" Unfortunately the author speeds through topics in a fairly unrelated manner, showing the applications on the accompanying CD in just enough detail to show what one could do with Outlook if one had the knowledge. This is where the book falls apart. The knowledge is not presented coherently. One or two well designed applications, taken completely through would be much better than the large set described shallowly. I felt as if I were on a 21 city tour though Europe in three days.

* Bad index, so I can not use it as a reference book.

* Chapters 1, 2 and 3, whom are they geared to? Not that much useful.

* It is always hard to find answers to simple and basic questions, if exists in the book at all.

* It may be useful to an expert database programmer that is Sybase beginner, as a book to get snippets of information about Sybase. That is on the bases of something better than nothing.

I really liked the book. Most of the Sybase books you see are written for DBA's. This is an excellent guide for the everyday programmer. The author does a great job coving stored procedures and triggers. Very easy to understand and informative. I would give this book 4.8 stars. My only knock on the book is the index. It's a little too small. Overall an excellent book.