Human Interaction Books

It's a quick read, but it tells a long story. The Well is one of the earliest and longest-running online communities, and I've been a member for more than 10 years. Hafner's writing reads like much of the writing in the Well: personal, insightful, and very human. She looks at the evolution of the business, as well as some of the highlights -- and low points -- of the relationships among members. Even the darkest of days and most difficult situations is addressed with grace and empathy. Of interest to members, online historians, and community organizations everywhere. An important chapter in the development of the Net!

I liked this book. I've been there on well.com now and then, and it's true that the site was influential in forming the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other key initiatives in protecting the freedoms of the 'net. But the book is cool because even though Hafner says the Well is historic and unique, it's more like a very strong example of something we've all seen.

There's a soap opera pleasure to the conflicts in the book.

The Well's traditional attention to "process" can get annoying, but over all it's not so bad that any sanction against a user is heavily debated, unlike on some boards. You'll recognize the personalities and see the problems of trying to attract a wide range of smart outspoken people who can be jerks at times. You've seen this all before somewhere, and not just on the web.

Keeping a group at all cohesive when it is made of hundreds of strong personalities is classic challenge. The book is ultimately more about the problems of being in groups and communities, and of being human.

[Full disclosure: I am a member of the Well and have been for almost seven years as of the publication of this book.]

It's always been difficult for me to describe the Well to my non-Well friends, because there are so few virtual places that even approximate it, and they're even smaller, and practically no one knows what they're like either. "Computer conferencing" is what I say to my friends in business. "On-line community" is what I say to the people I think Might Get It. I also call it "the Peyton Place of cyberspace" and that metaphor (small town where everyone knows everyone else's history of indiscretions FAR TOO WELL) might be the most apt of the three, at least in my own experience.

Like any big amorphous concept, the Well is difficult to write about for a general audience. So Katie chose a story -- with love and friendship and grief and humor and all the other elements that make up a good story -- to carry her narrative. She chose a good one. Of course there are others. But this book (and before it, the WIRED article the book is based upon) comes closer to conveying the essence of the Well than anything else I've ever seen or read.

When the WIRED article was published I gave a copy to my mother, just to help her understand how it was that I had dozens of close friends I had never met. For a reader who wants to understand the astonishing power of true online community, in the light of human nature in all its ornery glory, I can't think of a better introduction.

I finished the book with a sad, sober feeling. Yes, the word "death" absolutely belongs in the title. The book is about life and death. It's one of those little books that appears to be about something concrete and specific, and is in fact evocative of much deeper issues. I was reminded of what I experienced as the sometimes toxic atmosphere on The Well by the posts in the book, and by the accounts of some of the principal players. As well as the beatific spirits who made the whole thing run behind the scenes. The influence of the Farm -- that was new to me -- but it explains a lot.

Will people realize that this is an emotional story, a sad sobering story of dreams fulfilled, frustrated, and failed? That is what got me about it. It contains more pathos than many novels whose goal is to move readers. Going in, I took the subtitle as ironic, like the "Fear and Loathing" title of the gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson, but it is literal and straight. The very first page sets the tone and the book is true to that. The Well wasn't my way to the Internet, but the 17-year arc of the story made me feel my mortality.

This is a terrific book. I appreciate that Katie Hafner understands her strength to be narrative. Limiting the focus of her narrative to the lives of a few of the core founders and early pioneers of the Well allows her to reach the sort of depth I recall experiencing there when I was a "Well being" for a time in the late eighties. I mostly hung out in the Parenting conference, because I was the father of teenage children and our family seemed to reel from one crisis to another during those years. The support and love I found there was extraordinary, and I have found it nowhere else since, except within my own dear family. Hafner succeeds remarkably in capturing the intangible essence of the Well, the special human warmth that no one could have predicted or planned ... and no one has succeeded in duplicating since.

Hafner also deals with the core issue of community, an issue central to the Well's success, and possibly central to it's eventual - what? - transformation. I was about to say, "dissolution," but an incarnation of some sort of Well lives on at Salon.com. The early Well, the one I knew, was a pioneering online community, before that phrase became today's buzzword meaning little more than a chat room. The online community was the core of a larger, real-life, flesh-and-blood community, in which people truly lived and loved and became sick and got well, and sometimes died.

Everyone who hungers for community - and that means everyone awake to the grief of modern life - should read this book. Most of us understand true community by its absence. My most vivid and unexpected realization about the meaning of community occurred many years ago, when our children were still little. We lived for a time in an Eichler suburb in Mountain View, California. Each house on our block was surrounded by a high fence. After some months of living there, we hadn't met a single neighbor. I was out mowing the lawn one sunny Saturday morning, with no one in sight, and I suddenly understood in a way I never had before that our commercial culture has a vested interest in the destruction of community. Without community, each of us becomes a consuming atom, each with our own lawnmower, each with our own set of tools, each with our own copy of every trinket. In a true community we would be sharing tools and sharing labor. GNP is maximized by eroding community. Our commercial culture has a vested interest in the destruction of community. And conversely, true community subverts this culture.

It's because of this paradoxical dynamic that the Well - to the extent that it *was* a true community - could not retain its character while evolving as a commercial enterprise. This is part of the story.

Read this book. Let it provoke you to examine the role of community in your own life.

Don't let the title put you off. This book is a real find. Practical, relevant advice on GUI design.

I reviewed this book hoping to find a good reference document for the GUI Design courses we teach. While my quest for the ideal reference continues, I am happy to recommend this book as supplementary reading. 'GUI Design for Dummies' certainly tackles the GUI topic as a process. Of the things I found lacking these items stood out:

* lack of discipline with terminology. Like many IT-related authors these days, Laura Arlov takes quite a bit of license when it comes to inventing terms. Perhaps they are not her invention, but little attempt is made to validate the origins of numerous words and phrases

* outdated conventions with repect to tasks and workflow (Use Case scenarios would be more appropriate than just 'task' and [navigational] scenario.

* very little material on transaction-based systems.

In Ms. Orlov's defense, most of these issues are not addressed in any of the other books I have reviewed.

Bottom line: an easy read. Examples are well matched to an overall process. Good start for developers that need an orientation to GUI concepts.

If you're looking for one book to introduce you to GUI design and give you a solid grounding in design for usability, this isn't it. It gives many useful tips and truisms, however, and if you buy it as one element of your larger usability/UI design library, you will be well served. In my work, I'm sometimes called upon to provide usability inspections and design critiques. This book has provided good support for some of the improvements I've asked programmers and designers to make.

It's true, this is the best book on GUI design out there. It's also true that several others are excellent, but Arlov alone has found a way to balance detail with breadth. I'm steadfast when folks get sarcastic about it being a Dummies book - I look them straight in the eye, rattle off all the other titles I've read, and say "this is the one to read and keep on the desk." The book comes with a CD (not a 3.5). (Laura, when's your next book coming out?).

This is an excellent starting place for anyone who wants to create usable GUI programs. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to get off to a good start.

If you like making stuff , or wondered how people go about inventing things, this is your magazine.
I've been inspired to make all sorts of things, and have found that my kids enjoy playing with hand made things as much, or more than any toy we can buy at the store.
There are also all kinds of great ideas for re-using technology.
It covers everything from marshmallow guns to robots. Very entertaining and inspirational and a great supplement to a good science education.

If the Make crew can keep the quality this tight, it will herald in a golden era of makers everywhere. This is a fitting follow-up to the amazing premeire issue. The great projects and how-tos quickly made my to-do list a mile longer.

If you spent any time building technical projects as a kid with your parents, this is a wonderful gift for them: it brings back the memories of some of their proudest moments.

I grew up reading "The Amateur Scientist" in "Scientific American" magazine, and built many of the projects (as well as the requisite radios and go-carts) with my Dad. Forty years later, I subscribed to Make: and realized that this is the modern successor to "The Amateur Scientist".

I bought a subscription for myself and my Dad: now, although we're seperated by miles, we can discuss the projects and relive the times we spent together building and breaking things.

70% of contents are sponsored, and ads appear everywhere making the whole thing hard to read. Most importantly, instructions are not understandable.

The cover on this one is a bit deceptive since the large robot stuff is just a short article. But the rest of the magazine rocks! Great projects from simple marshmallow shooters, to a PC modded into the case of an Atari 2600, to robotic dogs and mice. There is ten solid pages on podcasting, both receiving podcasts and creating your own. If you thought the first one was great you will love this one.

These folks know usability testing; they have a lot of experience with a wide variety of systems. Their backgrounds in linguistics and in psychology inform their process making it a highly effective and very user-centered process. This book is easy to follow and comprehensive. A great first read or refresher for any usability engineer.

I had Dumas (one of the authors) for a Testing & Analysis master level class at Bentley College (the semester before he retired; I wish I could have waited, so I actually would have gotten something for my 3000+). He was a horrible teacher, the worst in the program. Reminded me of Ferris Bueller's "Anyone, anyone?". I thought this book was redundant and not very helpful. If you already have QA experience, you'll probably find this book a waste of money. It's out of respect for Hackos' work that I'm not rating the book lower.

This book is real thorough, right up to the point of listing suitable topics for small talk with your test subjects :-) If you are doing guerrilla usability testing, most of the forms and checklists in this book may be overkill, but there is still a lot of useful information... I appreciated a lot that statements are in general backed up with literature, not just common sense reasoning. The only drawback of this book is that it feels a bit dated (i.e. pre-Web). It does seem to have been revised and puts emphasis on iterative testing etc, but doesn't mention more recent techniques such as eye-tracking, or using the Web for recruiting test subjects or identifying potential usability problems via request logs.

This is required reading for usability professionals. It's a detailed look at testing, covering everything from test plans and lab construction to data analysis and how to handle unqualified testers who slip through the screening process. It covers lower-budget tests in addition to full-scale ones. It's clear that Dumas and Redish have loads of experience, and they're not shy about sharing it.

The most useful idea I came away with is that testing needs a specific purpose. You can't just test a system's usability; you test, for example, the navigation system or a membership form.

The only flaws here are a couple of omissions. There's no mention of testing web applications, though the principles covered here can be extrapolated to other purposes. And there is no mention of the ultra-cheap guerilla testing tactics. I doubt Dumas and Redish would approve of them, but it would have been very helpful to read about where these alternative methods were effective and not.

This book is a keeper. While my organization will not likely be doing full-blown usability testing for awhile, I'm now more able to evaluate and communicate with third-party testing facilities. And this book will influence all of our other evaluation and assessment testing methods.

This is a classic in the field, written by two highly-respected usability specialists. I was fortunate to read it as one of the textbooks in a class on usability testing taught by Dr. Dumas. It is a very practical book, covering planning, testing, and reporting the results. The strengths and weaknesses of usability testing are discussed, and there is some information about other usability evaluation methods and basic design principles.

This is a republication, with only slight changes, of the 1993 edition, so the technology and costs are not up to date. But it's not hard to think in terms of digital cameras instead of videotape.

Highly recommended.

This book is very well written, content-rich and provides a plethora of examples that I can use on the job immediately. What more can a software developer ask for? I would give it 10 stars if the option was available.

This book is great ! Really ! I pratice OO development especially following RUP. This book describe a full Usability process, with activities, guidelines, workload estimation and artifacts. You can directly put it at work, because you naturally see why an activity leads to another. All the book is good, even if it seems heavy (500+ pp), there is no waste of space. As a RUP practitioner, it's very easy to integrate this approach into the RUP and it naturally fits with Use Cases. Believe me: get it !

Or do other people think there is a need for creativity in user interface design? This book, while very helpful in providing a set of procedures to follow when evaluating users and their particular needs, leaves out the very important concept of the ART of user interface design. I see plenty of recommends for Tufte's trilogy of user oriented design books and for the book "Don't Make Me Think". These books are much more readable, and none of them are nearly so formulaic in their approach to user interface design.

Another problem I have with this book, and with many other computer books, is the size. Why does it take so much to say so little? Is there an editor in the house? There is definitely some good content in this book. I happens to be buried in a mountain of text.

This book gives concrete data on the "how-to" of usability engineering and realistic data regarding the *selling process* of these concepts to management. Additionally, it can function as a "how-to" handbook with its many examples. To name a few, the examples include: pre-evaluation, evaluation and post-evaluation questionnaries, data collection sheets and data analysis and report sheets.

The book has a fantastic index for quick reference and is organized well.

I have never written a review before, but I am so impressed with this book - it is indispensable. I particularly like the way the information is presented - very readable. Also valuable are the sections that address shortcuts and alternatives for applying techniques in the real world. I often am called to get involved during and after development and have to adapt "perfect world" techniques into very short cycles. This is a must have for people in our profession.

I'm frankly startled at the universally positive reviews for this book. As a full-time usability researcher and an alumnus of Apple's human interface technologies team, I felt this to be one of the worst books on usability I've ever read. I could not possibly recommend it for either academic or professional purposes.

I'm going to limit specific comments to just the first 10 pages. Critiquing the remainder would warrant a full dissertation, not an Amazon review.

1) Subpar fact-checking.

For example, on page 3: "Alan Cooper, a usability specialist who did pioneering work at Apple..." Alan Cooper never worked for Apple, let alone perform pioneering work there. Alan *Kay* worked for Apple. And Alan Kay's most significant work was by far at Xerox PARC; his Apple work with the Vivarium is rarely cited in comparison.

2) Too many overstated claims lacking conclusion validity

Given the author's own academic background, I'm startled by the poorly grounded research-based claims littered throughout the book. For example, on page 5: "a belief confirmed by a study that shows that '27% of all Web transactions are abandoned at the payment screen." This claim, as presented, is indefensible: no study author would have access to every single web transaction to perform such an categorical assessment. Were it even true at the time of the study, who's to say it's true now? Presumably she meant "27% of Web transactions *sampled*..."?

Especially given the author's added responsibility in writing for students who are likely concurrently learning basic research methods skills -- including assessing conclusion validity -- this book's own research claims should be responsibly situated. This aspect of the textbook distributed me the most, because it presents the moral hazard of students tacitly learning to make similar such overreaching and false claims from their own work as usability researchers.

3) Author pushes usability testing as it may have been 10-15 years ago, not as it works today.

For example, on page 10, she quotes usability testing salesman Jakob Nielsen: "If no [usability test] information is available, you might as well choose by tossing a coin, and you will have a 50% probability of choosing the best interface".

Go tell this to Apple: there was not any formal usability testing on the iPhone, and yet reviewers hailed it as the most usable (and best interface) ever shipped on a phone. Instead, Apple iterated designs rapidly, and rely upon extensive use of peer cognitive walkthroughs and an emphasis in employee recruiting for good usability sense. By blindly dismissing the value of other methods of getting to good design, the author presents a skewed and misleading image of usability practice in reality.

I'd never tell an accomplished musician that "if you haven't tested the work you're writing before an audience, you might as well make your songwriting decisions by flipping a coin rather than use your best judgment, 'cause your intuition as an experienced creative professional is worthless." Why, then would we respect ability of certain categories of creative people to put together works that meets complex human needs -- but completely dismiss that talent in the space of interaction design?



Beyond countless such "yowser" moments in reading this book, it's just a mediocre book attempting to straddle the line between a practitioner book and a student textbook - while ultimately failing to meet the needs of either audience.

For practitioners, it's far too verbose and lacking in visual design affordances to use in practice; you can't scan a section for a few seconds before a study, because the book largely consists of paragraph after paragraph of text with the occasional bulleted list and header.

For students, it's just a low-value textbook: the printing is cheap (on-demand), and the price is high. The book's content suggests that author received no significant editorial or professional design assistance. The most important messages key to designing one's first usability study are buried in paragraph after paragraph of academic tangents. The author's widespread use of overreaching research-based knowledge claims makes it hard to know which assertions to trust, and which not to trust. Publishers should be investing a lot more resources into a book if they're charging such a high price (contrast with Baxter & Courage's beautiful user research book, which sadly omits usability testing).

Students - and practitioners - deserve a better usability testing book than this one.

As a Usability professional, I have the opportunity and obligation to keep current on the literature surrounding usability research. Usability Testing and Research not only meets those criteria, but also gives readers the opportunity to delve into and understand the usability testing process.

Carol Barnum's book is at first a typical academic textbook that explains not only the principles of usability, but also the argument for usability and user-centered design. However, it is the presence of appendices at the end of most chapters that will help readers perform usability testing.

The appendices are detailed copies of documents and protocols used in previous usability tests. The aforementioned principles and arguments would stand on their own merits, but the added appendices give context to the principles and arguments, thus giving the reader the opportunity to see the principles and prototypes in action.

From my standpoint as a professional in the field, valid usability testing starts with careful, in-depth preparation. Usability Testing and Research handholds readers through this process, starting with objectives and ending with participant recruitment. This is a very important aspect of testing, as poor planning always equals poor results.

Barnum devotes several pages of the book to a very overlooked aspect of usability testing: reporting the results. Besides the detailed attention given to writing the results in a formal report or a quick report (or roadrunner as the book explains), the book also explains how to present and prepare for an oral report. No matter how valid the test may be, without an accurate, to-the-point report that gives the audience what it needs, the test results and associated costs are wasted. Barnum even discusses visual aids and the importance of the highlight tape. This, of course, is paramount to the report's success, since seeing is believing.

The book even contains a chapter devoted solely to Web usability that details common Web problems as well as insight into the Web's goal-driven users. Although research on the Web is constantly changing due to the experience level of the user base and innovative technology, the Web chapter offers an easy to understand benchmark for all usability professionals who evaluate the Web.

All in all, Usability Testing and Research covers everything that an individual new to the field needs to know. It also contains practical advice and how-to that even seasoned usability professionals need to review from time to time.

Ken Kellogg
Manager - Usability Research

It's been a long time since we've had a new textbook on usability testing. Dumas and Redish came out in 1993, Rubin in 1994 and although I still use both of them constantly, I've been looking out for a solid textbook that has more awareness of the web in it. Carol Barnum's new book meets that need.

The book opens with chapters on `What is Usability and What is Usability Testing', `Other Methods for Getting Feedback About Product Usability', `User and Task Analysis', and `Iterative Testing for User-Centred Design'. I can see that Carol wants to set user testing in context, but I was concerned that if you're really new to usability testing then you might be put off by Chapter 2 `Other methods', as it is a very densely written chapter that describes many techniques very briefly.

The meat of the book starts at Chapter 5 with `Planning for Usability Testing' and continues through `Preparing for Usability Testing', `Conducting the Usability Test', and `Analysing and Reporting Results'. The book then changes course slightly with a chapter on 'Web Usability', giving some design principles as well as details of applying the methods to the web.

Our Open University students love the plentiful examples in our course on User Interface Design and Evaluation. Carol Barnum's book should also appeal because of its extensive use of examples. She gives lots of detail from a student team's test of Hotmail (Microsoft's web-based e-mail service) so you can see the process as they tackled it. I found it a little frustrating that there weren't any screen shots of Hotmail as it stood at the time of the test. As well as the Hotmail example she uses excerpts from a test of a University web site, and has lots of anecdotes and smaller examples as well, many of them aimed at testing documentation - a neglected area. Perhaps the amount of space taken up the examples means that there is less meat in the core of the book, but if I were a beginner I'd find it very reassuring. Conversely, though, experienced practitioners might find Chapter 5 onwards a bit basic.

Academics and practitioners who like to follow up interesting ideas will be glad to know that there is extensive referencing. The appendices placed in context with the chapters broke the flow for me somewhat when I was reading the book at a sitting, but I think they would be more convenient placed where they are when using the book to actually plan and conduct a test. Each chapter closes with questions/topics for discussion and exercises which looked helpful to me if you were planning to use this as a textbook, or if you are a new practitioner who is using the book as a guide through your first usability tests.

Carol Barnum's style is clear and easy to read as you would expect from a Professor in Technical Communication. She often uses comments from Chauncey Wilson, a very experienced practitioner to give some practical tips and insights, but I sometimes found myself wishing that she had put more a more personal touch, more of her own practical experience, explicitly into the book. Apart from a couple of anecdotes, the word `I' hardly appears until we get some of her own opinions on web usability at the end of Chapter 9. We can guess at one of her concerns because she includes an interesting appendix on `Making it work as a team', which I though was a good, concise introduction.

I would recommend this book as an introductory text for undergraduates because of the extensive examples, fairly reasonable price and referencing. I think it would also be good for practitioners - for people who are getting started with user testing - to help them through their first test. I think that I'll find myself recommending that readers should start with Chapter 5, and then come back to Chapters 1 to 4 later.

(This review was written for 'Interfaces', the magazine of the British HCI Group)

Most of the existing books about usability testing are ten years old. While these books have a lot to offer a current student of user-centred design and usability testing, some students find them too out-of-date to be taken seriously. This book addresses that issue. The audience for the book is clearly for those who are new to usability and usability testing. However, experienced professionals will find a fair amount of information that is useful to them as well.

The first four chapters form an introduction to user-centred design: definitions, testing models, other methods for gathering usability data, user analysis, task analysis, and prototyping. The remaining chapters discuss the process of usability testing itself: planning the test, preparing for the test, and conducting the test. One interesting chapter discusses a topic that is usually overlooked in the other usability literature: analysing the data and writing the report. This chapter also discusses the Common Industry Format for reporting usability results. The inclusion of this discussion increases the usefulness of this book for usability professionals.

Dr Barnum devotes a chapter to the sometimes nebulous topic of usability testing for the web. Although there are other books that discuss this topic alone, the inclusion of this material in this book is excellent. Students who are new to usability testing will find this book more useful than a book devoted solely to web usability testing. After completing this, a student can then go on to read web-specific books such as Nielsen's recent "Designing Web Usability".

Students and others learning about the field will find the extensive examples used throughout the book to be extremely helpful. Together, these examples provide sufficient material for a student to model their complete usability test, from planning to reporting the results. Additional examples are available on a website maintained by the publisher. These examples are less useful for current practicioners, but do not detract from the overall text for this audience.

For those who are interested in this field, this book an excellent introduction. It is well-written, and the examples provide a cookbook for students to emulate. Experienced professionals will probably not find this book to be as useful as a new student, although it is a very useful refresher.

Disclaimer: I am a past student of Dr Barnum's, and the work that my student team produced for her class is used in this book. I am now a human factors engineer for a large corporation. I keep this book on my shelf in my office, and often lend it out to our interns who are learning about this field.

I am the Usability SIG Manager for the Washington, DC chapter of the STC (Society for Technical Communication). I wrote this review which was published in the October 2002 edition of the Usability Interface, the quarterly newsletter of the Usability SIG of the STC.

Don�t be fooled by the somewhat unmemorable cover of Usability Testing and Research. Carol Barnum combines research findings with practitioner experience to produce probably the most comprehensive but concise resources on usability testing now available.

This book is part of the Allyn & Bacon series in technical communication. Designed in part to fulfill the needs of students in a graduate-level class in usability, it is also a great resource for usability practitioners as a tool to update and upgrade their skills. The structure of this book should suit both neophytes and the experienced. Each chapter and its subsections are well structured with a logical progression from one section to the next. The table of contents is well organized and very readable so that a knowledgeable individual can scan to find those sections that are of most immediate interest. The index is likely to be a great reference tool as it was created by a professional usability tester, someone who should know what a reader is likely to need.

Dr. Barnum, a usability consultant and professor to graduate usability students, draws upon nearly every prominent usability authority to build a comprehensive bible of usability testing. The author�s academic background is evident in the careful footnoting of every page and the detailed listing of scores of references at the end of each chapter. If there is an issue the reader wishes to further explore, the source is cited for ready access. The findings from top usability professionals are distilled to their essence and woven into comprehensive work on usability. The reader gains the primary benefit of hundreds of books, papers, and articles without having to filter though this sea of information. There is little if anything of importance that is left out of this 448-page book of concentrated wisdom and knowledge.

The reader, whether a student or an experienced practitioner, gets the benefit of both analytic research and its practical application. Many examples of actual real-world, usability test plans, data, analysis, or summary reports are reprinted. These examples are great models for the practice of usability. This book has not just general how you might do something but also how it was actually done � not just theory but actual practice.

Anyone interested in the usability of hardware, software, computer games, Web sites � any product that has a user interface � will find a great wealth of information. The first chapter starts off defining usability and explaining usability testing models and theory. It also provides a methodology for cost justification and the basis to proselytiz for usability.

In Chapter 2, the author should be commended for taking a holistic view of usability and discussing how heuristics, surveys, and focus groups play a role in the design of a usable product. Chapters 3 through 7 explain user and task analysis as a precursor to designing, planning, preparing, and conducting the test. Chapter 8 details not just the analyses of the collected data but also different methods of reporting the findings to obtain the best result. The final chapter builds on everything before and discusses those issues specific to Web usability. Nearly every chapter has an appendix with real-world examples specific to that chapter. The end-of-the-book appendix discusses how to make usability testers work as a well-functioning team.

Some books are chock full of scholarly research and empirical data and great for academia. This book has a solid base in research but was written for the real-world practitioners of usability. It�s this steady focus on practical real-world application that most impresses me about this book.

Still not convinced this book is for you? Check out the companion Web site, ..... Download material from the book�s appendices and sidebars. Peruse the many usability tools and link to other usability resources on the Web.

Usability Testing and Research is not only of great value as a resource of practical information to usability professionals but also as a tool to explain the benefits of usability design and testing to skeptical management. Carol Barnum should be congratulated for a great job in bringing together in one book such a complete, well-organized compilation of usability theory and practicality.

I got this book unexpectedly. I wrote to Glasshaus expressing the difficulty in purchasing their titles in India and Bruce Lawson, their Brand Visionary, promptly responded with details and followed it up by sending me a complimentary copy of this book. I was quite surprised, to say the least. It will be tempting to dismiss this as a mere publicity gimmick, but Glasshaus does have a unique way of going about their publishing business. Take a look at their site. I wonder how many other big names in publishing maintain an interesting and useful blog, to mention just one.

Coming to the book itself. I have copies of Jakob Nielsen's books, "Home Page Usability" and "Designing Web Usability". I also have Steve Krug's "Don't make me think" among other books on usability in my personal collection. This Glasshaus title is as different as can be from all those books. For the first time, one gets to hear first person accounts of the how and why of usability decisions made on major, major web sites. I mean, when you are talking about Economist.com, BBC, eBay, evolt, MetaFilter etc, you are talking about some of the most powerful and influential web sites today. The personal narrative form of exposition is another refreshing change; you feel each author is talking directly to you and sharing his/her experiences in making the kind of usability decisions they did for their websites. Each account, when read carefully, can help a web professional connect the excellent groundwork of experts like Nielsen to the practical compulsions behind real-life usability decisions.

Another excellent aspect of the book is the range of web sites that are represented, right from the publishing might of the Economist to the media powerhouse that is the BBC to the ecommerce success of eBay to powerful online communities such as MetaFilter and Evolt. To round all this off, there is a personal ecommerce venture (SynFonts) that is an excellent showpiece for how the Web allows one man to compete with many. In other words, a terrrific amount of thought has gone into developing this book and Glasshaus cannot be commended enough for putting together such a fine team to share its views. I felt that non-profit and church/spiritual (beliefnet would have been a great example) sites were perhaps the only major categories to have been left out. Perhaps a second edition of this book will address that lacuna.

And, refreshingly for a book on Usability, there is almost no Nielsen-bashing in its pages, except a few words from Molly Holzschlag in the editorial, I think. But, then, Molly is always known to be a little irreverent:-)

The only other book of this genre that I can think of is "Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide" by Jared M. Spool's User Interface Engineering (uie.com). But, I don't have a copy so can't really comment. If you are looking for practical examples of usability decision making, this book is a great title to have. Perhaps this review will serve as quid pro quo for Glasshaus' excellent gesture in sending me a complimentary copy that has given me so much learning.

The book features case studies from the designers behind six different sites who demonstrate how they created their usable sites. It accurately declares itself a guru-free zone.

Glasshaus moves away from the traditional guru lecture of "do this, don't do that" and show-offy reading. Instead, the book offers an easy read with a friendly tone based on the designer's style. Meet the the designers of BBC News, Synfonts, eBay, Economist, evolt.org, and MetaFilter. The designers talk about their own Web site and how they worked to make the site what it is today.

The book reinforces the basic Web design rule: "Know your audience." I can only hope that the book I write will be half as useful and applicable as this one. It wouldn't surprise me if Glasshaus becomes a familiar name in the Web design world.

I for one, am tired of being presented with a prescriptive list of 101 'guidelines' and being told that they will solve all my usability problems, if only I would just implement them. The authors of this book will explain why they bent the rules, and sometimes discarded them completely.

The book consists of a pragmatic introduction "beyond the buzz: the true meaning of usability" by Molly Holzschlag followed by the six 'tales from the design face'. Each chapter starts with a slightly cheesy, yet endearing question and answer session where the author(s) are asked to comment on items ranging from their favourite pizza, to their rating on a 'geek index'. I found this one page intro helped me to view the authors as human beings, rather than as 'subjects'. At the end of each chapter the authors are given the opportunity to give photographic examples of items that they personally rate as being 'usable'..

The sites covered range from large companies like the BBC and Economist through to community sites like Metafilter and Evolt.org. Also included are chapters on 'e-bay' with tens of millions of users, and the one man SynFonts site.

Each of the tales are compelling and you want to keep reading to see what happens next. The authors concentrate on why they did things, rather than how they did them, so you won't be getting tips on implementing navigation schemes in PHP or ASP. But you will find out why eBay merged their design and usability groups into one, why Flash was the right solution for SynFonts and why both evolt and MetaFilter decided that un-threaded comments were the way to go.

The publishers have put a lot of effort into every detail of this book. The layout enhances the readability of the book, and the screenshots have been carefully chosen to reinforce the text rather than act as page candy. If I had to pick one element that illustrates this attention to detail, it would be the index. Bill Johncocks has done an excellent job in producing an index that adds real value to the book. I wish more publishers would follow this example and employ professional indexers.

Usability: The Site Speaks For Itself has been bedside reading for a couple months. This book has been a great downtime inspiration. This book, unlike the Guru usability books, teaches you how to approach Web interface design and development with the user in mind. The hard fast rules some experts espouse do not always work well with our own users. This book does a wonderful job teaching us how to think through the process. The book provides examples of six varied sites and their developer's approaches to creating usable sites for their audiences. This books is a joy to look at as well as read. There are many nuggets tucked in the pages that make it worth the price. When building Web sites it is best to remember the one constnt is it all depends and we need to know how to think through these situations.

I found this to be a waste of my time and money. I had to choose a book on usability in order to make a presentation on for a usability course I am taking at Ohio University. For the course we are reading Jakob Neileon's "Designing Web Usability." This book is a good book on usability.

I found "Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself" to be very uniteresting. The author's are constantly comparing themselves to Neilsen and tearing his books down. While I agree with the authors that there is no "one size fits all" approach to designing on the web and that different things work for different sites, Nielsen does as well. It seems to me that the authors should have worked on providing more useful content and a better layout (the book is laid out very poorly) than trying to bring Nielsen's views down.

I highly suggest that you don't purchase this book, but if you have money to throw away, send me an email, I have some real estate in Flordia I want to sell you too.

For someone who has already used other languages for GUI design, this is a great book to get quickly up to speed in the .Net view of Windows forms. It didn't cover everything in enough detail for me but good enough to get me started. I would of liked more on data grid (how about a whole book on it as it's complex enough) and context menus but I eventually figured it out on my own. I could go for an advanced version of this book too.

I'm a fairly new programmer in vb.net(finished vb.net II) and I found this book to be VERY good. Yes it is very theory intensive but the examples it gives are fairly straight forward and if you aren't the world's best programmer they show you how to make controls to make some really slick looking programs.

There are a few .net 1.0 examples that will not work in the new 1.1 (notably the xp theme visualizations) but this book is well worth it if you are interested in making some "professional" looking forms for your application.

This book is about the details of form building. It is not about the details of backending a form to a database or website. It has a very specific remit and if you are not an experienced VB.Net programmer you could be badly caught out here. This is not a book to cut your UI building teeth on. There are introductory texts to do that. It is also not a UI design book. So don't expect lashings of advice on usability theory, design and test. They are just not here.

The focus on the book is on form controls creation and the various arcana in .Net that support them. Many interesting and useful topics are raised in the book (there is an overlap between some of these and the coverage in other books, e.g. MDi and GDI+). However, the extent to which they will generalise for the 'average' programmer is another question. I am not convinced that the book has sufficent novel content over an above other more general texts of the market.

Unless you specifically need detail about form controls, form splitters, personalised system trays etc, this book may be overkill. A good deal of topics in the book is covered in Deitel and Deitel (and more besides),and Balena. So if you are learning VB.Net be careful in your choice.

I found this book to be excellent. It isn't 100% comprehensive, but it is full of real, practical code and suggestions for using controls. It's the only book I've found that dealt with the treeview, listview, and imagelist in enough detail. Particularly noteworthy are the descriptions on how to create custom controls based on these controls that have built-in application meaning. For example, the book explains how to create a treeview that has a hard-coded "structure" and exposes custom methods for adding/navigating your type of data. Similar advice is given with validation, drag-and-drop, form inheritance, MDI workspaces, and data binding strategies. Basically, the book is a solid guide to mastering .NET controls. Note that this book isn't the best place to learn GDI+. Although there are two excellent chapters on the subject and the basic charting control, both Apress and Wrox provide dedicated GDI+ books that focus more closely on custom drawing.

Probably the best example in the book is the document-view architecture with the print preview--simple, elegant, and worth the trouble. Overall, high-content, well-written and genuinely **USEFUL**!

It is interesting to compare this book to the one by Petzold which I also regard as a "must buy" - but for different reasons. Macdonald's book is much more manageable than Petzold but still seemed to contain everything I wanted to know about Windows forms.

Petzold on the other hand is roughly twice as long and thus far more complete. Petzold is also perhaps a slightly more interesting writer than MacDonald - but then I am not sure everybody needs the details provided by Petzold...

In sum if you can afford only one book and need the definitive reference, get Petzold as it is *so* complete. However if you want a book you will turn to on a day to day basis and likey read from cover to cover get Macdonald.

The book is OK. from a student's perspective, the book is not interesting. Unless is assigned by the course instructor it would sit in my bookcase and collect dust.

This is a very accessible textbook that does a good job of covering the basics of all aspects of the design of virtual reality systems. This textbook can be roughly divided into three parts. The first four chapters describe input devices, output devices, and computer architectures for virtual reality, and are useful for engineers studying the design of hardware devices used in virtual reality systems. Usually, hardware sections of VR textbooks gloss over techical details in exchange for essay-like descriptions, but this book does a pretty good job of describing the hardware in enough detail that most engineers can grasp what makes the hardware function and figure out how to duplicate the various hardware sections of a VR design. Although many of the ready-made systems in the section on computer architecture are obsolete, such as the SGI and Sun systems, the overall architecture of computers shown that assist in Virtual Reality systems is not obsolete, and this section of the book is therefore still useful.

The next three chapters discuss modeling, VR programming, and human factors in VR. These are primarily of interest to the computer scientist whose area of research is virtual environments. The programming sections focus on the WorldToolKit and Java3D. These sections illustrate the kinds of tasks that can be accomplished with these programming environments/APIs and even show some code snippets. However, these sections are not a tutorial on these languages. For that you will need outside sources that specialize on teaching you the specific programming languages and environments.

The final two chapters are on the application of virtual reality, and should be of interest to anyone who wishes to become knowledgeable about the design of virtual reality systems and the tasks that such systems can perform. Although much of these last two chapters is written in more of an essay style, they don't abandon all technical details, and they have some pretty good descriptions and block diagrams showing VR being applied to robotics, for example.

The book's CD includes video clips that demonstrate virtual reality simulations as well as a six chapter lab manual for students to demonstrate their skill in designing and especially programming various functions of a VR system. Highly recommended for the student who is getting started in studying virtual reality and wants to learn about the hardware and software that comprise VR systems. Since the CD's lab manual is a book in itself, I list its table of contents here since that information is not available with the other product information:

1. Introduction to VRML and Java 3D
Objectives
1.1 Overview of the VRML language
1.2 The VRML Browser
1.3 Examples of VRML Worlds
1.4 The Basic VRML Syntax
1.5 Objects Creation in VRML
1.6 Introduction to Java 3D [Advanced]
1.7 VRML and Java 3D [Advanced]
Homework
Project 1.0 Install a VRML Browser
Project 1.1 Create a Simple VRML World
Project 1.2 Load VRML files in Java 3D [Advanced]

2. Sensor and Event Processing
Objectives
2.1 Route and Event Processing
2.2 Sensor Nodes
2.3 Interpolators in VRML
2.4 Creating Objects in Java 3D [Advanced]
2.5 Event Scheduling in Java 3D [Advanced]
2.6 Interpolators in Java 3D [Advanced]
2.7 Sensors in Java 3D [Advanced]
2.8 Hardware Device Interface in Java [Advanced]
Homework
Project 2.1 Interaction using Sensor Nodes
Project 2.2 Simple Interaction in Java3D [Advanced]
Project 2.3 Behavior in Java3D [Advanced]
Project 2.4 Interaction using a 3D Tracker [Advanced]

3. VRML and Java Script
Objectives
3.1 Programming in VRML
3.2 Script Node in VRML
3.3 Event Processing in a VRML file for scripting
3.4 A Scripting Example using JavaScript
3.5 A Scripting Example using Java [Advanced]
3.6 Stereoscopic Viewing using StereoEyes Glasses
Homework
Project 3.1 Trajectory of a Bouncing Ball in JavaScript
Project 3.2 Test Stereoscopic View with different parameters
Project 3.3 VRML Loader with Stereoscopic view [Advanced]

4. Scene Hierarchy, Geometry and Texture
Objectives
4.1 Scene Hierarchy in VRML
4.2 Constructing a Hierarchical Object: The Snowman
4.3 Geometry nodes in VRML
4.4 Extended geometry node details
4.5 Textures in VRML
4.6 Geometry in Java 3D [Advanced]
4.7 Texture Mapping in Java 3D [Advanced]
Homework
Project 4.1 Create a Hierarchical hand model
Project 4.2 Creating a Garden in VRML
Project 4.3 Human-like Robot in Java 3D [Advanced]

5. VRML PROTO and Glove Devices
Objectives
5.1 Creating a New Node in VRML
5.2 An Example of Prototyping in VRML
5.3 The New Node for Device Interface in VRML
5.4 Data acquisition and calibration of the 5DTgloveTM [Advanced]
Homework
Project 5.1 Glove Calibration
Project 5.2 Human-like Robot
Project 5.3 Glove Calibration and Hand Animation [Advanced]

6. Viewpoint Control, Sound and Haptic Effects
Objectives
6.1 Navigation and Its Control
6.2 Using 3D Sound in VRML
6.3 Creating Force Feedback Joystick interface [Advanced]
Homework
Project 6.1 Viewpoint Control using Glove Data
Project 6.2 Force Feedback Joystick Interaction in Java 3D [Advanced]
Resources
References

Appendix
A.1 Available Java 3D Loaders
A.2 A JNI Example Program for Polhemus
A.3 Combining VRML world in HTML Documents
A.4 Configuration of the system to see Stereoscopic view using StereoEyes
A.5 Example Grading Policy for Project 3-1 Bouncing Ball
A.6 An Example of Final Project Assignment (Requirement)
A.7 A Sample Sheet for VR Final Project Grading

Dr. Grigore Burdea and Dr. Philippe Coiffet have years of experience in the field of virtual reality, and Virtual Reality Technology reflects their combined expertise to the benefit of all. I used the first edition as a required textbook in my undergraduate and graduate virtual reality courses for many years, almost from the time it was published in 1994. I am now going to use the second edition in my classes.

Instructors in need of a textbook for undergraduate or graduate introductory virtual reality courses, students looking for a guide to the field of VR, persons interested in knowing something about the current state of virtual reality, and practitioners, researchers, and businesses involved in VR, will all find this a must-have book.

Like the first edition of Virtual Reality Technology, the second edition is a book that provides an enormous amount of information. Because of its coverage of all the important areas of VR, it is the perfect textbook. The inclusion of a CD-ROM, which contains well-chosen video clips and a laboratory manual with programming assignments, adds to the book's usefulness for students. The manual uses VRML and Java 3D languages, which are free and thus reduce the cost of creating VR teaching laboratories in connection with the book.

The book includes mathematical and technical background and explanations, for courses that need that information. As a further aid to instructors and students, this textbook edition has review questions at the end of each chapter. Rounding out the list of valuable teaching aids, there is a companion website for instructors at http://www.vrtechnology.org with additional teaching material, such as sample term projects, quiz and exam examples, and lecture notes.

As a highly satisfied user of the first edition with many VR classes, I can wholeheartedly recommend the second edition of Virtual Reality Technology.

Dr. Veronica S. Pantelidis, Distinguished Professor, Co-Director, Virtual Reality and Education Laboratory, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina USA

The 1st edition of "Virtual Reality Technology" by Burdea and Coiffet quickly established itself in a twin role as a basic VR teaching text, and an essential laboratory reference manual. Given the high rate of change in this field, this 2nd edition is well overdue, but it has to be said that it has been worth the wait.

The book has the potential to attract diverse audience from students (and instructors), to the non-VR professionals, and VR professional wishing to keep abreast of the state of the art outside their core domain. Undoubtedly this book has something for everyone, but the text (and its support materials) is particularly geared to the needs of the student and the instructor. I have to say that in this teaching role the book, the CD and the web site provide almost unparalleled support with each chapter providing comprehensive details of the relevant technologies and concluding with sample questions. This is supported by a well-organised web site with course material, exam questions, samples and quizzes. To use this site, instructor registration is required with access in less than 24hrs. The registration process is not fully user friendly for non-US and non-academic users but this small misgiving aside this is an excellent method of obtaining first rate lecturing material that can be used exactly as it stands or adapted to purpose. And still there is more! - in the form of a CD-ROM, which contains video clips to augment the text and a laboratory manual with programming assignments. Most of the video material is excellent and very instructive although some is little more than a commercial promotional video with uncritical appraisal. Nevertheless this whole concept is to be applauded. One minor point with the movies is the range of formats used (Avi, QuickTime, Real Media, and Mpeg) which does not suit all computers and their loaded software. The manual provided within the CD-ROM uses VRML and Java 3D languages, and also includes drivers and hardware manuals for several well-known devices all of which improves the educational content of the book.

Turning to consider the book, its content and layout in some detail, we see that early in the book the authors identify what they consider to be the key aspects of a "VR system architecture". At the start of each chapter they then highlight the position of the chapter material within this architecture. This simple mechanism clearly shows where each aspect of the technology is located in the bigger picture.

The introductory chapter deals primarily with a history of VR, showing some of the earliest systems, but also speculating on growth trends and the potential of the technology. This is an interesting but generally lightweight chapter and perhaps the only area with which I was a little disappointed.

Chapters 2,3,and 4 consider the system hardware, with chapters 2 and 3 concentrating on input/output hardware and chapter 4 focusing of the computer platforms. I found this very logically written and presented, providing an excellent overview, and in most instances good detail of the hardware and it operation. Given the number of devices highlighted it could be argued that there is insufficient detail and while this may be true for the expert reader I feel that it is well rounded to suit the student reader. At this same time the extensive list of references available at the end of each chapter should satisfy many of the demands of the expert. In chapter 4 dealing with the platforms, I was pleased to see that considerable effort has focused on the PC based systems which are becoming increasingly powerful and acceptable both to the public and commercial/professional user. Although the technology at this end of the market changes and dates so quickly the importance of this format makes it a valuable addition.

In chapter 5 dealing with modelling the authors explain; the difference between, the use of, and advantages with, different modelling techniques including polygon-based and NURBS-based models and the principles of physical modelling, behavioural modelling, and database management. There is no doubt that the content of this chapter will stretch those coming into the area with limited mathematical knowledge while perhaps falling short for those with specialist modelling requirements. Getting the right blend for the novice student and expert reader is always going to be difficult. Nonetheless, I believe that the blend achieved suits a wide (the widest) range of audience.

The sixth chapter considers programming and while not a programmers manual per se offers excellent explanations of the key limitations, advantages and quirks of some of the better known programming languages. Having studied this the reader is left in the position where they now possess the basic knowledge to consider some serious VR programming and this is no mean achievement given all the other content of the book.

A user's perspective is presented in chapter 7 looking at the human factors Unlike many texts which deal only with visual interaction quality, this book covers a wide range of effects including the nature of the input interface and multiple interactions with objects and other humans. This chapter not only explains the value of human factors studies, it actually gives a fairly complete explanation of how they are conducted. The chapter concludes with a discussion of health and safety issues including the causes and prevention of simulation sickness.

The final two chapters focus on the applications. Given the number of applications that are or have been developed and the natural bias of any reader, getting the right blend will never be easy or perhaps even possible. Nonetheless, the authors have tried and largely succeeded in identifying the key generic areas where VR is having or is likely to have an impact. It would be all to easy to nit pick over the exact choice which will never be to everyone's liking, but there is a good blend of current medical, entertainment and military uses followed by a brief exploration of emerging application trends.

Dr. Grigore Burdea and Dr. Philippe Coiffet have years of experience in the field of virtual reality, and Virtual Reality Technology reflects their combined expertise, to the benefit of all. I used the first edition as a required textbook in my undergraduate and graduate virtual reality courses for many years, almost from the time it was published in 1994. I am now going to use the second edition in my classes.

Instructors in need of a textbook for undergraduate or graduate introductory virtual reality courses, students looking for a guide to the field of VR, persons interested in knowing something about the current state of virtual reality, and practitioners, researchers, and businesses involved in VR, will all find this a must-have book.

Like the first edition of Virtual Reality Technology, the second edition is a book that provides an enormous amount of information. Because of its coverage of all the important areas of VR, it is the perfect textbook. The inclusion of a CD-ROM, which contains well-chosen video clips and a laboratory manual with programming assignments, adds to the book's usefulness for students. The manual uses VRML and Java 3D languages, which are free and thus reduce the cost of creating VR teaching laboratories in connection with the book.

The book includes mathematical and technical background and explanations, for courses that need that information. As a further aid to instructors and students, this textbook edition has review questions at the end of each chapter. Rounding out the list of valuable teaching aids, there is a companion website for instructors at http://www.vrtechnology.org with additional teaching material, such as sample term projects, quiz and exam examples, and lecture notes.

As a highly satisfied user of the first edition with many VR classes, I can wholeheartedly recommend the second edition of Virtual Reality Technology.

Dr. Veronica S. Pantelidis, Distinguished Professor, Co-Director, Virtual Reality and Education Laboratory, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina USA