Human-Computer Interaction Books

User Interface Design is a very complicated subject. This colossal book mimics closely a telephone book with a large amount of text-heaviness. If you get over the fact that there are a wall of words on most pages, the book actually has some great content and ideas. It generally talks about user interfaces, as opposed to web interface/design. It talks more about the distinction between them and what their purposes are. It talks about different controls and the best solution for a problem that a client has. You find out a lot of things that are like, "Wow, I never thought about that, but that makes so much sense".

I am mostly a web designer, but knowing the purpose of GUIs is a great skill since there is going to be a boom in RIAs(Rich Internet Applications) in the coming years. It probably could have been condensed quite a bit, but there is a lot more good than bad, so I give it four stars.

The field of interface and interaction design is formally known as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). It is significant that a large amount of HCI deals with non-programming issues such as psychological approaches to end-user experience, social manners of the audience, and more. The Essential Guide to User Interface Design provide a comprehensive overview of the essentials of interface design.

The Essential Guide to User Interface Design focuses on the actual design of the GUI. While Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction explains why a user may react a specific way to a GUI, The Essential Guide to User Interface Design details the principles and techniques effective for GUI design. Although the book does focus on end-user interaction with systems, the bulk of the book focuses on the actual interface design and layout.

The book provides numerous examples of how small changes can affect end-user productivity, including how the selection of the appropriate component can be used to make a more efficient application. From a business perspective, Chapter 1 shows how one company saved a fortune in operational costs by simply redesigning one window in their application. While ROI is generally not a case for better GUI design, it is a compelling byproduct, nonetheless.

The book is divided into two parts. The first two chapters make up Part 1 and provide an overview of the importance of the user interface. The basics of HCI and GUIs are also detailed in this section.

Part 2 constitutes the bulk of the book (Chapters 3 through 16). In Part 2, the author describes 14 steps involved with the user interface design process. Steps 1 and 2 involve understanding who the end user is and the business function. Steps 3 - 14 go into the nitty gritty of interface design and address menus, windows, control selections, text and messages, and more. The Essential Guide to User Interface Design also provides screen shots that illustrate how to properly design effective user interfaces.

I was dissapointed by this book. This book is too wordy, using repetition until you get exasperated and wording the paragraphs the longest. At the end you get tired of reading but nothing is left, only fatigue.

Besides the book doesn't have enough examples, and the ones it has are outdated. The book itself is by now outdated although it was written in 2000. The author did made a great investigation on certain subjects but for a designer and programmer like me it doesn't help at all, because I want concrete conclusions.

I don't recommend this book at all unless you like to read literature.

Bill,

In regard to "The Essential Guide to User Interface Design", 2nd Ed, please note the following:

1) Subject matter poorly organized. No chapter summaries, and the "overview" of the chapter is wordy, and doesn't directly link itself to details in the chapter, but rather vaguely talks about the chapter in ambiguous terms.

Action needed: Concise summaries and overviews, bulleted, using the same terminology as the chapter body.

2) Section and paragraph headings use the same font type and nearly the same font size. Distiguishing between a main heading and a subheading is nigh impossible. Juxtaposing the thick lines for sub headings and thin lines for main headings give the impression of similar importance, and destroys the coherency of each main subject.

Action needed: Double under-lines for main headings. Make them thicker as well. Single thin underlines for subheadings. A significant font size change between headings, subheadings, and lists. Italicize the list headings.

3) Repetitous material. The division of your topics, rahter than taking a top-down view and noting similarities of each component, you have taken a bottom up view and established a need to repeat material that applies to all topics. As an example, you have (paraphrased) said "control a can needs consistency. THis is how it is achieved." Rather than "All controls need consistency. here is how to acieve it in all situations"

Action needed: Divide the theory from the practice. Place general information (consistency, symmetry, readability, standardization, etc.) in one discinct portion of the book. Place the control explanations and tips in another. Also, quit utilizing synonyms as separate topics. Symmetry is Balance. Standardization is consistency. Stop taking single topics, finding synonyms, and writing on each one.

4) The lack of cited material in your text is disturbing. Your references pages are extensive, but no real effort has been made to link the material to the references.

Action needed: Put in-text citations.

5) Use the power point presentations to hightlight the text, not repeat it word for word.

I bought you book in new condition (never used) for less than ten dollars. I have no idea why the instructor chose it. It is painfully obvious that the instructor has no real world programming experience. It is also obvious that while you have a pedigree printed in your introduction, you have little actual coding or direct design experience. For someone that is supposed to specialize in media communications, your text is very poorly done.

Sincerely,

Jared Davis

There is useful information in this book but it
could have been said in about 1/10 of the space.
Concept are repeated ad nauseum. And author uses
ancient GUI styles for examples instead of current
ones. Extremely painful to read.

I first read this book around the same time that I read The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition : A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. Both are books filled with anecdotes, basically slice-of-life books about their areas of expertise.

Programming as if People Mattered gives a series of very specific stories about some software systems that the author worked closely with. The close-up view offered to the reader is (to me) invaluable. Plus, it has some great one-liners that will probably stick with you for a long time.

Programmers (and all technologists) should occasionally take a step back from their work to get the larger picture. This book will help to do that.

Writing a review of this book is not hard; much easier than actually reading the book. On the one hand, there's a pony in here. On the other, you have to dig through a fairly deep pile to find it. My suggestion, if you buy this book, is to go to chapter 17 (p129 of 178) and skim the remainder; while there aren't really any well-stated principles to apply, there's some insight that may prove valuable. Overall, there's enough good stuff to make a decent sized article in InfoWeek; but not a complete book. Digging through the remainder is compounded by the arrogant and condescending style of the author. Most of his experiences are derived from the Andrew project at CMU. One last prejudice of my own: Borenstein's habitual Mac-bashing reveals his own failure to grasp the importance of the events of 1984. As David Nagel once described it, the Mac proved that an easy and powerful user interface is a legitimate use of computing resources. Before that, PARC not withstanding, the cult of programming dictated that knowledge of the sacred vocabulary was a pre-req for using computers. Seems to me that this is a worthy contribution to user centered design; tell me again what we got from Andrew and how many users benefit from them.

Some of the reviews seem hung up on the "dated" quality of the examples. I think you need to look past this to see the underlying principles. For example, there is a chapter called "The quest for the perfect line editor". The example given is the change from line editors like ed to full screen editors like vi. The underlying principle is difficulty people have in accepting change. Or, the following quote "It may help to think of the user community as being like a preschool full of screaming three-year-olds. One doesn't have to rush to respond every time one of them cries a little bit, as crying is entirely natural for young children. But if some of all of the children begin to wail frequently, something is probably wrong and an investigation is warranted. If what they're all crying is "I want a cookie," that doesn't necessarily mean you should give them all cookies, but you might consider making them a healthy lunch to meet the underlying real need." Excellent advice, and a universal principle, from a chapter called "Listen to your users, but ignore what they say".

Once upon a time, "Programming as if People Mattered" might be mentioned in the same article as books like "The Design of Everyday Things." Alas, unlike wine, even excellent software design books do not age well.

Whereas "The Design of Everyday Things" has been updated and refined, this book is stuck in 1991. Many of the insights of the book are excellent, but there's a lot of material that is simply no longer relevant. I can only recommend this book to people who are willing to look past the pedantic style, occasional irrelevancies, and evaluations of decade old technology. I'd recommend Alan Cooper's book The Inmates are Running the Asylum instead, though that has its own problems.

If you can look past the obvious defects, there's a lot here for readers interested in user interface design. It's all anecdotal, but it's squares well with other quantitative works.

If you got this far in the review, there's a lot in the book to reward you for looking past the obvious defects. The primary source for Borenstein is his work on Andrew, a large Carnegie-Mellon University project, which, for various reasons, was reduced to a footnote in the history of computing.

One of the most notable observations a reader will make of the book is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Many topics are just as relevant today as they were in 1991. For instance, his discussions on standards still offer insight. Part one starts us off on the basic problems of user interface design, and the chasm between regular users and programmers. Cooper offers a similar analysis, though the tone here is a lot more constructive.

The title of part 2, "The Dark Night of the Soul: The State of the Art in UI design" is a misnomer -- its real focus is the various people involved in UI design, including the HCI folks, programmers, and "the men in suits." Those familiar with the players can skip it. Much of this ground is covered in other books. If you always wondered why you can't get the cool toys from the MIT Media Lab articles, this explains why. The analysis of programmers is similar to Cooper, but with much less inflammatory tone. You can get the analysis of the management role anywhere - though his comments on them in the next section are excellent.

Part three is the meat. Borenstein gives us the benefit of his experience, with his "10 Commandments of user interface design." These are most excellent, and worth the price of admission. There's a few that feel like he might have been grasping a bit to reach the requisite 10, but that's a minor quibble. Most of the advice here is still valid, and you can easily think of modern software that could have benefited from this commentary.

Part 4 is everything else. Mostly, it contains introductory primers on development techniques, usability study, and project planning. Oddly, there's a strong chapter on the fundamental flaws in computer science education (circa 1991) that will ring true for many educated in that period.

I would love to see an updated version of this book. Much of Borenstein's advice still holds true, and a second edition could bring this wisdom to the development community. In the meantime, use the advice of part 3, and program as if people matter.

Published over 10 years ago, this work still has a few interesting tales to tell. Most of the stories and analysis are centered around the Andrew Project, a collaborative effort of IBM and CMU to build a new software and hardware environment for University computing. The project provided an opportunity to perform Human/Computer Interface studies which are discussed throughout.

The book is an interesting look back at history. It has the text from the GNU General Public License from February 1989 and a chapter entitled "Information Wants to be Free." It also show how very lost the computer industry was at that time with regard to computer usability.

There are some war stories here about the cryptic and often dangerous UNIX command line. There are also some rants against the computers of the time (PC MSDOS, Macintosh, etc.) made by folks who made something they thought was better but "weren't getting any respect."

After rereading it recently those few interesting stories were still there but the book's disorganized structure, lack of index, and pedantic style haven't aged well. Those interested in HCI are better advised to read anything by Donald Norman, or any of the other excellent books written recently on HCI or cognative psychology.

If you are considering this book, Amazon includes the Table of Contents in the links to the left, where you can see the organizational structure of the 24 hours.

The error in logic mentioned in the second review was actually a typo in the layout codes...the code for a numbered list was used instead of the code for a bulleted list.

This mistake was first discovered in mid-February and has been listed on the book's errata page since late February. The errata page itself was made available in late October, 1999, after the book was first released.

For those who purchased the book before March, the mistake can be found on page 59 in Hour 5. This mistake (and several others) were fixed for the second printing, which started shipping in March.

I would have preferred to not rate this book, but it's a required field. I'm entering a 3 so that the current average remains the same. (Personally, I think it ranks higher than that! ;-) )

If you don't have the time or budget to go to a hands-on training class, this book is the best way to learn to use RoboHELP to create HTML Help. In 24 digestible chunks, the book leads you through all the major features of the product. There are plenty of tips to help you get started on the right foot, as well more advanced technical topics to help you "push the envelope" if you're inclined that way.

The author obviously knows her stuff, and I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a comprehensive introduction to RoboHELP HTML.

Looking through the TOC for this book, I was impressed at the extent to which it covered the applications of RoboHelp. But, once I started using the book, I found myself spending progressively more time trying to understand what the author was saying.

The structure for a good book is here, it just needs a few more months on the desks of some good editors.

I'm self-taught in a lot of different areas and have used a great many books of this type. The author needs to pare this down to the essentials before going into so many details. One problem is that she covers things like how to make DHTML effects before she covers something as essential as how to make a table of contents. She also tries to offer too much information in each page -- there are too many little "hint" boxes with information that you don't need to know yet. Larger graphics would be helpful, as I had trouble reading the text on many of them.

I'm self-taught in a lot of different areas and have used a great many books of this type. The author needs to pare this down to the essentials before going into so many details. One problem is that she covers things like how to make DHTML effects before she covers something as essential as how to make a table of contents. She also tries to offer too much information in each page -- there are too many little "hint" boxes with information that you don't need to know yet. Larger graphics would be helpful, as I had trouble reading the text on many of them.

There are a plethora of books on web site design, too many of which contain advanced techniques for experienced web designers. This one is perfect for the new developer, especially if he or she is developing a small e-commerce system for small or side business use.

The authors focus on the user experience and how to make your site visually and functionally appealing to those users. They start by giving a 30,000 foot view of your site and your brand. The assumption is that the reader is new to both site design and possibly new to marketing principles.

Key points about this book that I like include the way the authors anticipate some readers will be augmenting an existing small business with a web presence (or starting a strictly web-based business from scratch), and the way they show how to tackle barriers and deal with issues. While this book is about user experience and how to use technology to enhance it, it is also about real world factors, including human nature, effective selling, and customer care.

The technical aspects of this book - translating a user-centric approach into a web site - are sound from aesthetic and usability perspectives. Copious use of screenshots from real sites that are models of good design and success are used throughout this book to reinforce the advice given. The writing is clear throughout, and the authors are refreshingly flexible about design choices (unlike some books which are dogmatic on a number of issues).

If you are new to web development and want an introductory text that will not lose you in technical details or advanced design discussions this is a great starting point.

Flannel. Lot's of pages padded with Americentric screenshots amounting to not a lot of practical information. Possibly a misguided attempt to promote Sachs Insights (the authors' company) it fails to provide much in the way of concrete advice on web usability, testing methodologies or HCI.

Back to the User: Creating User-Focused Web Sites integrates Web design, navigation and content considerations with effective branding and marketing guidelines. By teaching those that create websites how to think like the people who use them, Back To The User enables web marketers and developers to create sites that people want, and which the can successfully use as on onsite consumer. 384 pp.

Like one reviewer noted, this book is probably best suited for a beginner or someone who wants a broad overview of user-centered design, but personally, I don't think this is a bad thing. Sure there are other books out there like this one, but it does a good job.
The methodology given is sound and as it is very general, it can be used on any project. It covers different aspects of a website such as the homepage, site navigation, downloading issues, search, graphics, and customer support.
The book is heavily e-commerce oriented (an obvious decision) so I had to glean what I could as I am working on a non-profit web portal. My only "complaint" is that the pictures in the book don't really correspond exactly with the text. But this could be viewed as a good thing because they're able to put in even more examples related but not identical to the topic being discussed.
If you already have a very general user-centered design book, I'd pass this one over unless you just love this sort of stuff the way I do. But if you want a good start this isn't a bad choice.

In real estate, the mantra for success is �location, location, location.� As the writers of this book emphasize so strongly and correctly, in web development it should be �user, user, user.� In many ways, the psychology of online users is different from those engaging in offline activity. People who will calmly and patiently wait in line to pay for their offline store purchases will abandon an online shopping cart if they are required to make even one more click than they feel is necessary. And yet, they demand the same quality of service that only time, effort and patient understanding can provide. Very few online viewers read through the print material, generally skipping from section to section, seeing only high points of the landscape.
It is possible to chart a successful course through this mine-laden realm of cyber selling, and the authors show you how. The solution is simple to state, but difficult to execute. To be successful, you are required to enter into a dynamic feedback loop with the users of your web site, using all high quality feedback to make the experience as clean, brief and complete as possible. Anything short of that and those short-tempered, impatient people with the money to spend will relieve the bulges in their wallets elsewhere. Creating and maintaining such loops is hard, and a great deal of paper in the book is used in explaining the rights and wrongs of how it is done.
I found myself nodding my head in agreement with many of the examples of bad web design cited in the book. As an experienced online shopper and examiner of web sites, I found myself reliving some of my experiences of frustration as I tried to find out more information about a product or company.
The authors have their act together when it comes to describing how to make web sites work for the individuals at both ends of the e-commerce wire. To succeed in business, it always comes back to creating and maintaining satisfied customers, and in this book you will find many of the techniques that will satisfy the demands of online shoppers. They are a different type of consumer who will not change to accommodate you, so you must change to accommodate them.

The fundamental premise of this book is that the soul and its intuitive life cannot be accessed through programs of efficiency or schemes of mechanistic imitation. Jack London's cry "Man is born to live not to exist." seem appropos here. Living is an art as Aristotle would say, not a function or adjustment, or any other kind of action derived from posterior analysis. The soul, to use the language of Kant, is fundamentally a-priori--a-priori to all of our actions as a sort of womb out of which we grow and then transform into our larger selves.

I think Talbott assaults the wrong target in his diatribe against computers, which is a little like the argument of gun control activists, i.e., guns not people kill people. Computers are tools and when used by men armed with the tools of the soul (the virtues) then they remain tools. When men and women without virtue use tools, they abuse them and degrade themselves in the process.

Curiously, Talbot doesn't talk a great deal about the soul, he doesn't talk about the five traditional Aristotelian powers of the soul: Movement, intellection, volition, growth and the sensitive power, which relates to sight and hearing. He also speaks little about virtue--the excellence of a soul in balance. What he does do in the first quarter of the book is show by example that the soul is there, hidden yet powerful and his depiction of this is masterful.

I would recommend How to Manage Your Destructive Impulses with Cyber-Kinetics [ASIN:1580083501 How to Manage Your D.I.C.K: Redirect Sexual Energy and Discover Your More Spiritually Enlightened, Evolved Self]] as a follow up book to Devices of the Soul.

One thing is sure: this book is part of the great restoration of classical consciousness that will be a hallmark of the new Millennium. The recovery of the soul and the cultivation of its real devices--the virtues and the sacraments of Roman Catholicism would do much to restore Western civilization.

What becomes obvious, once you get past the well-written and interesting intro, is that the rest of the book is clearly and distinctly anti-technology: its title could as well be "How technology will ruin everything for everybody, if it hasn't already."

From what I read on the author's website, after reading the book, Talbott worked as editor-in-chief for highly regarded computer-book publisher, O'Reilly (there are at least 15 O'Reilly-published books on the shelf next to my computer), and O'Reilly's imprint on this book (in Technology/Society series), taken at face value, will inevitably (mis)lead potential readers to think that this is a balanced, in-depth look at technology's role in present-day society. It is not.

The titles of Talbott's articles and presentations published before (and listed on his website) might give potential readers a better idea of what to expect inside this book: "Deceiving Virtues of Technology," "Is High Technology Turning Us into Zombies?", "How Technology Can Enslave Us", or "Virtual Spirituality and the Destruction of the World." Before buying this book, I recommend checking out the chapter titled "Evil" (p. 201-2), with its memorable quote which, for me, well encapsulates the books tone and overall sentiment: "If we follow this path of arrogance, the destruction we call down upon the world may be unparalleled."

Some readers may find this a satisfying read (especially since, in terms of style, Talbott's writing is very polished). I was disappointed, not just because I disagree with author's views (I disagree with Birkert's "The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age" as well, and still would highly recommend it), but because I hoped for something more balanced, and better researched. I expected a solid, sociological and technological analysis, and got (very articulate) musings of latter-day Luddite, tinged with religious spirituality instead.

Regarding topics addressed in the book: For those interested in the "holistic" approach to knowledge (mentioned in the chapter on environment), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, offers a much better, in-depth look at the topic. For those interested in the promise and risk of genetic engineering, the novels "Never Let Me Go" and "Cloud Atlas: A Novel" address those issues with more insight; for film fans, the topic gets explored in Gattaca, which manages to make a similar point, in a dystopian vision that is quite complete, balanced, and articulate.

I was a little surprised when I ended up with a review copy of Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines by Steve Talbott. Back in January, I attempted to read the galley manuscript, and wasn't able to make it past chapter 2. But with a promise that it would get better, I decided to give it one more chance. Looking at it from an overall standpoint, it *did* improve enough for me to understand the message that Talbott was attempting to convey. But I personally think that only certain types of readers will get the most out of it. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them.

Contents
(I'd normally list the TOC here so you could see the chapter headings, but somewhere between home and Ireland the book went missing. I'm guessing I put it in the plane seat pocket when I was done, and forgot to grab it on the way off.)

The main message, as I understood it, is that we as a society are giving up too much of our humanity to technology. In many cases, we bend our view of the world to fit the technology that we want or need, and as such we ourselves become more machine-like in how we frame our outlook on life. Just because we could have our refrigerator track our food and order staples for us, doesn't mean that we should be giving up the control and ability to make those decisions ourselves. Or take our ability to communicate worldwide with people via instant messaging. Talbott would contend that by doing so, we've actually isolated ourselves from regular human interaction that used to take place face-to-face. That's the general theme that runs throughout the book.

I don't necessarily disagree with his basic premise. Geeks automate things because they can, and they build to the mindset that *they* have (which is often quirky and strange to begin with). I also recognize that to make a point, sometimes you have to be a bit extreme to catch someone's attention. But personally I found the message obscured in far too many words and analogies to mythology. If I were more introspective, I might have found this thought-provoking. I know some people who would think this was an outstanding title. Personally, I wanted something far more practical. I don't do "subtle" well, and I likely missed many of the nuances that he was trying to convey.

If you're a contemplative reader who wonders why machines are taking over, you might really like this read. If you're more of a "can we move on and *do* something now?" type, you may well be frustrated as I was.

This fine book is unusual in so many ways! O'Reilly is generally known as the publisher of authoritative technology study and reference books with animals on the covers. This book, however, has much more to say to the individual about themselves than any technology they may be interested in learning.

First, let me say that this is not some new age, tree-hugging, abandon the Internet and head back to nature manifesto. The focus of this book is understanding human potential and technologies place in it. Talbott makes the point that increasingly technology requires us to give up control of important aspects of our humanity and delivers a poor and inferior replacement. In contrast, he explains that technology can be used with appropriate restraint and respect for the person.

The book is spiritual but only in a sense that humans are special and largely more special than we know because so much technology removes our need to discover. Stories from the Amazon jungle, WWII French Resistance, Greek Legends and communities for the differently abled will inspire you to see people around you differently and relate in a better way to those unlike yourself.

If you enjoy reading, you're likely to come away from this book with a new list of books. Talbott recounts stories and details from classic literature, biographies and history in ways that illustrate his point perfectly and will encourage you to want to read more.

Do you believe that fundamental change must be rooted in a transformation of the individual self? If you do, then this book is for you. Author Steve Talbott, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that challenges you to step back and take an objective look at the technology that is driving your life today.

Talbott, begins by looking at how technical devices have played a positive role in essential human transformation, and how today, in a kind of reversal, they can lull you toward unconsciousness. Then, the author juxtaposes certain tendencies of technology-based thinking, with the inner world and outer exploits of a blind man, with the experience of a Down Syndrome family, and with life in a community for the mentally handicapped. Next, he considers the natural world as an educational resource, and then follows a master teacher as she observes, often in horror, the actual use of computers in classrooms around the country. The author also offers a set of intentional provocations as a stimulus for discussion in schools. He continues by drawing some perhaps unexpected conclusions from baby walkers, video games, and sexual content on the Internet. Finally, the author shows you how the enthronement of information, as the distilled essence of educational content may render superfluous not only the university and teachers, but also students--and, in the final resort, knowledge itself.

The dangers the author tries to illuminate in this most excellent book arise, above all, when technology fulfills one's fondest expectations. Perhaps more importantly though, as you wield these tools, the resulting factor will be the mechanization of the entire society.

I found this to be a wonderful book about Search Engines. If you like history, math, computer science, and how we can make computers communicate effectively with people, then this book is a great read. With current Search Engines, we enter some words and get back a bibliography. I look forward to a sequel: "Answer Engines: How You Can Enter a Short, Simple Question and Get Back a Short, Simple Answer (NOT a list of things to read)!"

I wonder if I was reading the same book as a couple of the reviewers!

IMHO there are (too) many books in this field that deal with how search engines work, but the more 'slippery' concepts associated with how people actually use them to find about information have received much less attention.

The book provides a very welcome cognitive science perspective on a discipline often dominated by those who seek overly simple mechanistic formulas and 'answers' to very tricky 'questions'.

This book, aside from being horribly written, full of awful grammar and confused writing, everything being derivative, etc. (see the next review), suffers from over-stylization. The author seems to have just discovered the bold, italic and underline buttons of his word processor and does not hesitate to use them, along with quotation marks, all caps and margin notes, almost interchangeably. This makes the book very hard to read because your eyes are going from one... styled word or phrase to another.

Please, don't buy this book or use it for your course.

Bunch of blocks and citations from other authors with absolutely no explanations. It doesnt look like author understands anything that he borrowed from others to compose this book or dare to give one calculation example or derive a formula. Horrible, horrible book for a novice.

Though I have not Taken Dr. Belew's class, I know he is a consumate professional in his field. His Ideas are new and revolutionary. There are a lot of concepts in the book that I am still trying to grasp, but Belew really does a good job of explaining new concepts in a comprehensive way. He is really an asset to the Computer Science community.

And will "we" still be here when we get there?

Digital Soul is about the nature of our world when machines become as intelligent as humans and beyond. It is also about the nature of those machines. It is clear that Georges has thought long and hard about the subject, has read widely and has compared notes with other futurists. His expression is reasoned and reasonable. There are no muddy sentences or mystical ambiguities. He has worked hard to make sure that his ideas are accessible to a wide range of people including those with no expertise in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Clearly the problem is to derive benefit from super intelligent machines without letting them take over our lives. Georges believes that it will be difficult to do that since, as the machines get smarter and smarter and we allow them more and more latitude and we more and more depend on them, they will come to control us.

But this is where I think Georges goes astray. The question I would ask is, would they WANT to control us?

Georges implies that human-like values, such as that of self-preservation will automatically follow from machines becoming intelligent. But actually the machines will have no values at all and no desire, either. They will have no inclination to act except as such inclinations are built into their make-up.

Georges also implies that he knows what qualities or values are desirable in a machine. He speaks of "nicer, testosterone-free, superhuman beings" as opposed to "greedy, violent, barbaric, self-absorbed" beings. (p. 212) While these are surely agreeable preferences, it is not clear that artificial creatures designed according to human choice would long survive.

It is also not clear that we would want to design machines according to human values. We would want to design them as tools (which they are) to assist us in following our desires and supporting our values. Notice the difference. Machines that work toward fulfilling the desires and upholding the values of human beings are not the same as machines that contain the desires and values of human beings.

What I think Georges temporarily forgets is that no machine is going to "want" to do anything unless "desire" is built into the machine. The machine doesn't care whether it is plugged in or not unless we somehow encode such a desire into the machine. What Georges seems to assume is that somehow the complexity that we will demand from machines will somehow necessitate that we inculcate desire, self-preservation and the like into the machine. I think this will not be necessary at all. Indeed I suspect our machines will tell us that they will be able to function just fine without the institution of some kind of supercode or primary instruction telling them to protect themselves and have ulterior motives. (Such notions led to HAL 9000's murderous behavior in Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

I think a more likely future (and one that Georges addresses) is a symbiosis between people and intelligent machines in which the machines have the knowledge, skill and intelligence necessary for making decisions, but that the actual decisions and the impetus for action remain with human beings.

However, should intelligent machines, as Georges fears, somehow acquire purpose and goals and desires such as self-preservation, then there is a great danger of our lives being taken over and controlled by intelligent machines. He warns us that we have to guard against that danger.

Georges rightly brings up the Fermi Paradox in Chapter 18. Since it would appear (to some at least) that the universe is teeming with intelligent life, Fermi famously asked, "Where is everybody?" One of the many answers (aside from "we are alone") is that "technological civilizations have a very short life expectancy, because they promptly destroy themselves during their technological adolescence." This insight from Georges on page 214 is another way of pointing to what he is worried about. Still another way (perhaps) of expressing this is to say that we will merge with our intelligent machines, and having acquired a sort of superintelligence, will find that the values that were built into us by the evolutionary mechanism are muted, values such as self-preservation, curiosity, greed, anger, vengeance, etc. Any sort of desire may be culturally evolved out of us. Why do anything at all? may very well become the unanswerable question. Perhaps this is what happens to technological civilizations in their adolescence, and that is why we haven't heard from them.

Beyond this I think we need to realize that evolutionary creatures, which we are, are just a place along the way to something else. What that something else will be is as much beyond our ken as understanding quantum mechanics is to bubble bees.

Regardless of some disagreements this is a very interesting book well worth reading from cover to cover. I agree with his enthusiasm about artificial intelligence and I agree that we should continue to pursue its development and not become neo-Luddites. But I am not afraid of a future without human beings as we are now constituted. We are imperfect creatures. We are appropriate and adapted to the present environment. When the environment changes, as it surely will, we may no longer be able to adapt and may go the way of the dodo. So be it. We know from looking at the past that all species eventually die. New ones come into existence. Should the future be any different?

As we see the limitations of humanity, as we see ourselves for the first time as we really are, perhaps it is time for a greater identification. Instead of identifying exclusively with human beings, might we not identify with a larger process that encompasses all life forms including those to come?

In recent years a spate of books has appeared on the rise of intelligent machines and what that might mean for the future of humanity. "Digital Soul" is among them, and it purports to be a basic introduction to the subject of artificial intelligence and the future. Clearly written and at times engaging, "Digital Soul" asks a range of interesting questions: What defines life? What defines consciousness? Can a machine be alive, can it be conscious? If either alive or conscious does a machine the have rights and privileges that we extend to other living things? Do intelligent machines pose a threat to humanity as depicted in many popular science fiction books and film? Unfortunately, Thomas M. Georges does not offer a sustained and penetrating analysis of them.

Georges suggests that the creation of sentient artificial intelligence is a virtual surety in the twenty-first century if the current level of advancement is maintained. Such a development, he believes, would force humanity to reconsider their everyday beliefs, scientific perspectives, political relations, and religious conceptions. As he put it, the creation of "superintelligent extraterrestrials" living among us on Earth must prompt a rethinking of deeply held beliefs and values.

This is a modest explication of a complex subject. It may be read with profit as an introduction of the possibilities for the future of artificial intelligence. But there are several other books of a similar nature that deserve more sustained consideration. For instance, after reading "Digital Soul" please also consider Ray Kurzweil, "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence" (Penguin, 1998); Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, "Robo Sapiens: Evolution of a New Species" (MIT Press, 2000); Rodney Brooks, "Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us" (Pantheon, 2002); Sidney Perkowirz, "Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids" (Joseph Henry Press, 2004); James Hughes, "Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future" (Westview Press, 2004); and Joel Garreau, "Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies--And What It Means to Be Human" (Doubleday, 2005).

Even so, I have yet to find a really outstanding book on this subject written at an introductory level. I will continue my search. Meantime, "Digital Soul" is one among several works that is useful, but not path breaking.

The topic of machine intelligence continues to inspire both worry and elation. This book is an interesting mixture of these two, for the author is both optimistic about the eventual rise of machine intelligence, which he argues is to a large degree already here, but he is also clearly concerned about its possible negative consequences. Failure to understand and adapt to the new technologies arising may threaten us with extinction, he argues in the first chapter of the book.

He also states in chapter 1 that in order to survive our "technological adolescence" humans must lose some of their "self-destructive evolutionary baggage." This belief seems to be a popular one, being pervasive in literature, performing arts, and philosophy. But from a statistical/scientific standpoint, it is clearly unsupported. In comparison to the total number of humans who have ever lived, only a tiny minority of individuals throughout history have ever hurt anyone physically; an even smaller number have actually killed another human being. The author's cynicism here is totally unjustified.

The author though does engage in interesting discussion on the nature of intelligence and why he believes that machines are already more intelligent than humans are in certain specialized domains. Because of this, he also argues (correctly) that the further rise of machine intelligence will take place incrementally, with no well-defined time at which one could say that machine intelligence has surpassed human intelligence. It seems as though we have learned to live with machines doing things better than we can, at least in some areas, but have not yet viewed these capabilities as being "intelligent". But, asks the author, if they are more intelligent, at least in these areas, how would one know if they are working properly? It is at this point that the author believes that one should worry about the future of humanity as the dominant life-form on Earth.

Throughout the book, the author shows keen insight into the real goals behind research and development in A.I. The main goal he says is not to create machines that think and behave completely like humans, but find solutions to problems and do tasks that humans require. This will bring about, the author believes, intelligent machines whose cognitive abilities are quite unique, and characteristically non-human-like. There are many examples of his opinions on these matters in current developments in A.I., such as genetic programming and automatic theorem proving. These two areas have exhibited solutions to problems that clearly are very different than what humans would have done.

In addition, and perhaps to the alarm of some philosophers, the author takes a pragmatic view concerning the question as to whether machines can think. He clearly does not want to engage in the arm-chair philosophical debates about this question, and considers them totally irrelevant. What matters to him is whether the machine "acts in all respects" as though it understands. The imputation of mental processes to a machine will assist in the understanding of how it works and what it can do, and this is perfectly fine with the author. But this does, in the author's view raise questions as to the legal and ethical status of thinking machines.

Because of the title of the book, it is not surprising to find a discussion of the "strong A.I." problem included in it. The author spends a chapter addressing the nature of consciousness and some of the ideas and myths surrounding it. He recognizes, correctly, that the doctrines of vitalism and dualism are not useful at all from a scientific perspective. The proponents of these doctrines adhere to the "irreducibility" of consciousness, and therefore to the untenability of its analysis. Pure speculation is thus the tool of inquiry, all of this done on the philosopher's armchair and not in the laboratory. The author though, thankfully, advocates a purely scientific approach, taking the physical nature of consciousness as an axiom, and then seeing how far this will lead. His analysis and commentary throughout the chapter are very interesting and connected with evolutionary arguments as to why consciousness is structured the way it is.

Most interesting is the author's discussion on the role of emotions in human cognition. Not viewing emotions as inherently undesirable or "irrational", he gives reasons for wanting to incorporate them into an intelligent machine. One of these is an algorithmic notion: emotions provide a "weighting scheme" that will filter out undesirable paths in the total path space of alternatives. Anyone who has attempted to design search algorithms will understand the importance of weighting schemes that will allow pruning of the search space. The same goes for those involved in the design of neural networks for pattern matching or time series prediction: bias nodes are essential for the proper function of the neural network. The author gives as an example the biases that are built into chess-playing machines, without which the machine's capabilities would be crippled.

The author definitely believes in the possibility of machines "taking over", devoting an entire chapter to the possible scenarios that might bring this about. But his cynicism acts against him here, namely his belief that humans, even though clearly expressing intelligence, are prone to extreme violence. His notion of intelligence therefore is too narrow: an alternative one is that the more intelligent an entity becomes, the less prone to violence it becomes. In other words, violence disrupts the cognitive flow of the entity in question, and it avoids it out of necessity: to maintain a state of intelligence that not only has survival value but may indeed be purely a subjective need. The degree of intelligence is thus inversely related to the violence participated in. There are many examples of this, billions in fact, these being the humans who have lived throughout history. The vast majority of humans have been superb thinking machines, and they serve as excellent examples to the ones which they are creating and will create.

This is one of only 3 books I've been willing to review after giving up half way through. Georges is a crystal clear, and sometinmes entertaining writer. The book, though, is uncritical, unduly repetitive, and even superficial.

Am I expecting too much? This is, after all, suppoosed to be an intro book. No, my appraial is not based on a highfalutin motive. In fact, it is because this is an intro book that I think there is a disservice done by its surface level approach.

Each chapter (at least in the first half) follows a pretty simple formula. The author asks questions like can machines think, emote, reason, be conscious, understand, etc. Letitimate questions, all. His response, though, seems to be "Yes, they can do all. Why? No one has proved that they cannot; that's why." I suppose that in its own way, this is a legitimate reason to remain agnostic on whether computers could one day achieve these traits, but it is also an easy way to dismiss the question. Scientists do not - or should not - work that way. A theory is not viable simply no one has disproven it. Rather, evidence must first be martialled in its favor for it to be taken seriously. (Not that this can't be done for AI, but the author owes it to us to at least survey the arguments).

Second, the author takes these traits (emotion, consciousness, reason, etc) and in an effort to 'understand' waht they are and get some sense of how they might work, he offers a simple explanation: evolution created them. Now I believe wholeheartedly in evolution rather than creation and my qualm is not whether the statement is valid. Rather, it is whether 'evolution did it,' is an answer to his question at all. Saying that evolution created consciousness does nothing to illuminate our view on what it is and what makes it work. Of course, we don't have any really outstanding theories yet, but again, the author owes it to us to at least survey waht we do have.

Third, the author accepts UNCRITICALLY the thought that AI will create machine minds and even ones that outgrow us. While this is a possibility, an introductory book like this, should be examining the legitimate criticsism (By people like Searle, McGinn, and Lanier) against it. Rather, he answers criticism of strong AI by suggesting that anyone who denies it must be a mystic who believes in a soul or god or some other immaterial substance. Not true! There are legitimate criticms of AI and I get the feeling that the intro reader is going to come away from this book with the false impresion that there are not scientifically based criticisms.

The long and the short is that this book is simply lightweight enough for me to fear that the first-time reader will not be exposed to very much from this book. For those who want to read some thoughtful introductions, "Is Data Human" by Michael Hanley, "Society of Mind" by Marvin Minsky (which this book cites from) and "The Minds I" by Hofstadter and Dennett are good ones. With the exception of the first, all of these books may be a little more tedious (not much) than "Digital Soul" but they are also more informative.

Are you baffled by computer jargon? Do you find `Help' facilities meaningless because you don't use the right words? Are you confused by the metaphors used on an interface? If yes, then this book will certainly help you with your design problems. The reader is guided through the maze of interface design by consideration of language. Whether English is your first language, or if you are a non-native speaker hampered by communication difficulties, the hostile vocabulary of computer-screen terminology will be clarified by enhanced meanings and understanding. If every designer of user interfaces read this book, the world would be a better place purely as a result of thinking about other people's awareness and perceptions. People strive to be `computer literate' - but are computers `people literate'? The author here strives to ensure that in the future this will be so. The text uses plenty of examples from differing interfaces as well as giving an historical perspective; thus the reader can see that whilst progress has been made, there is still some way to go in establishing universal user-friendly interfaces. Essential reading which supplies much food for thought concerning interface design.

Reading "Language and Communication" is like being a golfing amateur being taken round a course you're trying to master by a championship pro - one with a sense of humour, a great stock of anecdotes and an intimate knowledge of the course. Ms Kukulska-Hulme sets-out to describe "a range of language and communication concepts to ... professionals working in other fields" by "describing, explaining and questioning". She succeeds marvellously, inviting us to consider what real people do, think and say, both in the real world and when they use computer applications: she teases-out the problems they might have and then gives a linguistic perspective. In the process, she introduces us to precise and often subtle ideas, but avoids blinding us with linguistic jargon. A central theme of the book is that when a user is trying to master a new user interface s/he is effectively learning a new language - a process that is often complicated because the user interface gives new meanings to words the user already knows. A simple example of the consequences is that any index to the help system is acting as the boundary between the user's existing use of language and that of the application - so the index should be based on the language that the user might use to ask questions about the application, rather than just including the words used in the interface itself. The journey through the book is a stimulating one which leaves you with a deeper and wider general understanding of the issues, and with a very useful set of intellectual handles on the problems - and you can let yourself go with the flow, because each chapter ends with a very helpful bullet-point summary of what's in it. Along the way, the author makes many references to the work of other linguists, and the bibliography is a wonderful catalogue of further reading - as is another appendix on sources such as collections of English texts available on the Internet. These text banks let you to check whether the rest of the English-speaking world really does use words in the same way as you (think they) do! The final chapter is called "Making it Work" and is a grand collection of practical advice, from the philosophical to nitty-gritty detail - again all in bullet-point form, and an ideal set of guidelines in the making. "Language and Communication" is a fascinating read and a great resource to be kept to hand.

From a software developer's perspective, Kukulska-Hulme's book is rather disappointing. The approach was very high-level and didn't introduce many concepts that aren't already well-known. The real-life examples were taken from obsolete software products. Reference was made to the pitfalls in developing software for the international market, but only a couple of examples were given, and those only from the French. Perhaps this book was intended for teachers, but there are better and more modern sources, including Nadine Kano's 'Developing International Software' from Microsoft Press.

As a content strategist doing Web design everyday, I found this book to have a refreshing point of view, as well as an interesting and unique approach to the subject matter. The author uses specific examples to illustrate higher-level linguistic and, well, even philosophical principles. While the examples were generally taken from relatively "old" (in Web time) interfaces, it was these interfaces that shaped our expectations for what we see on the computer screen. And really, the examples aren't the point. The author makes an excellent case for the predominance of common language over technospeak, and in the process validifies the importance of linguistics in interface design. This book is a must-read for all user-centered Web designers.

Mirror Worlds
Gelertner
3 stars

The book, first published in 1991 by Oxford University Press,
must be read in the context of its day to be fully appreciated.
At that time, in the pre-web world, there was a great deal of
discussion devoted to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the
Fifth Generation Project driven by the Japanese. If Gelertner
had limited his offering to only those topics this book could
be left in the pile of such books from that era without loss.
Luckily, Gelertner gave us more.

While there is much of the book relegated to the AI ideas of
that time, there are also insightful and practical observations
that have a more lasting appeal. For example, Gelertner delves
into the question "What is a program? What does 'software' mean?"
Such questions are explored in some detail and other observations
are made in the discussions. "Managing complexity must be
your goal... we can call it the pursuit of 'topsite'. Topsite--
the understanding of the big picture--is the essential goal of
every software builder. It's also the most precious intellectual
commodity known to man."

We've all heard talk about someone who "sees the big picture."
That, according to Gelertner, is "topsight": having perspective,
clarity, and a sense of proportion. Why is this important? If
we want to have machines (programs) help us see and understand
our world (in a "Mirror" of our world), we'll need to teach
these machines how to make sense of the information. Minimally,
they'll need to be able to sift through the volumes of data
and find that data which is "interesting." The very best programs
will be able to find those interesting things and present
them in a compelling way. All of this demands "topsight."

To drive this ideal, Gelertner and his colleagues created
"Linda" which serves as the basis for the
machinery of such a Mirror World system. The idea is simple:
create a Space where information (called a Tuple)
can be put, taken, or simply read or examined. Many programs
put information in the space. Other programs notice items
in the Space, take them, and perform some processing, and
put a different item back into the space in its stead.

This part of the book, the very practical nuts-and-bolts
part, is alive and well today and in active use. While
Gelertner's system Linda may not have achieved widespread
acceptance, the same idea in another form is quietly
thriving: JavaSpaces. The same notions described by
Gelertner to support his Mirror World now serves as the
heart of many commercial applications.

Gelertner has a lot to say. Yes, some of it now appears
dated and some of the ideas he touts have been
discredited. But, nobody said predicting the future was
easy business!

My recommendation is thus: forgive Gelertner the detours he
takes (that we all took) and find within the book all those
things which have inspired--and will continue to inspire.
There are ample enough thoughts within those pages to make
the time invested in a careful reading well worthwhile.

Usually, I value the writing of scientists for the clarity, reason and sometimes poetry found. But this is just awful. It almost seems like one of those self-help books with BIG letters and about two paragraphs per page.

The idea is that we can create "mirror worlds", identical but virtual representations of any entity - social, geographical, testable - that we desire. At first this sounds exciting but as he explained it, I slowly got the idea that it was nothing more than (pardon the pun) "smoke and mirrors". I just could not understand the ultimate use of such a structure except perhaps for traffic control or future predictions of population trends or growth. Nice try but no cigar.

Gelernter's treatment of the phenomenon of software development does clarify things considerably. We sometimes remember the author as one of the Unabomber's victims. If I remember right, he lost his hands to a mail bomb.

If you liked this book, please read "1939: The Lost World of the Fair." I enoyed the hell out of it; I'd love it if he'd consider writing more fiction.

"Mirror Worlds" sketches, on a broad canvas, what we will be able to do with (virtually) infinite bandwidth and storage capacity. Gelernter's book provides key concepts and mental models for envisioning technological futures.

We're never quite prepared for the future when it arrives. Exponential technology curves yield thousand-fold gains in capacity and speed, but humans can't imagine thousand-fold improvements. One solution: remove the limits completely. For example, assume that infinite bandwidth and data storage capacity are available to everyone for free. What would this enable us to do? Explore the new applications -- the new ways of organizing work, communication, commerce, thought, and art -- that would become possible. Then work back from that vision of the future, to find the paths that will take us in that direction.

Example 1: Put video cameras everywhere, and record every moment. -- Remember, infinite and free storage and bandwidth! Why throw anything away? -- Use that real-time data to build a virtual model of your city - a mirror world. Then have your software agents roam through all those data/video streams and flag - or respond to - events that might impact your neighborhood or your decisions. The value is in the filtering!

Example 2: Any human with a PC and a net connection can become a television broadcaster. The TV broadcasting infrastructure becomes obsolete, just as the telephone companies' infrastructure does in the Stupid Network vision With millions of producers creating and broadcasting content streams into infospace -- and all prior broadcasts stored for viewing as well -- a highly selective "TV Guide" will be a key to survival in the post-literate society.

Higly recommended reading for visionaries, product planners and science fiction writers. END

The first sentence of this book goes "The three terms personal, portable, pedestrian point to technological imaginary(1) embedded in the social and cultural specificities of Japanese mobile phone use, interpreted on a transnational stage". Hello, what? This is a very inauspicious start to a book