Human Interaction Books

McCracken suggests a somewhat back to basics approach to website design. He offers 4 ideas - proximity, alignment, consistency and contrast. Claiming that by adhering to these, you can develop a very professional website. Even if it is just your personal website.

The ideas are useful and uncontroversial. Consistency across the pages on a website is probably the most common idea shared with other books on this topic. Alignment is also a good thing. Like avoiding centred alignment as much as possible. Left alignment is usually the best and safest choice, for the greatest ease of reading.

There is a chapter on colour which is also well worth reading. Explaining the biophysics of colour, and how to use colour effectively on a webpage.

When I first bought this book, I expected to get more out of it in terms of designing web pages with users in mind. It focused a lot on setting up testing centers with a paper system and getting feedback from users. It was very brief on good web design techniques (doesn't cover navigation enough). The hands on exercises leaves something to be desired. Although there were some good ideas in this book, I found myself "hanging" at the end as if there should have been much more.

I had to design a website for the department in which I work, at short notice and with limited familiarity with internet technology and NO background in graphics or design. "User-Centered Website Development" came to the rescue. McCracken and Wolfe are not interested in flashy gimmicks; they concentrate on designing sites that the site visitors will find easy, pleasant, and efficient to use. Chapter 3, "Know Thy User," helped me figure out what the audience's top priorities were; Chapters 4 and 6, "Organization" and "Site Navigation," helped me organize the pages; Chapters 5, 9, and 10 taught me some basic design principles in a hurry. The best thing about the book, though, is its philosophy--that a well-designed website is for the users, not an ego-trip for the designer. It's clear that they extended that approach in writing their book, to make it as useful as possible for the people who will be using it.

Until it was finally in my hands, I wondered why this book had not received much reviewer attention, given its solid content and authorship. Keys to understanding that at once became obvious:

1) The book is much more expensive than books with similar content.

2) The eloquent Jared Spool, listed as an author, provided only a short preface.

3) The book was designed as a college textbook. Who loves or hates a textbook enough to bother to review it?

As a classroom aid, the book is superb. Usability principles are presented from foundations to applications clearly and without padding. Unlike many usability texts, statements are backed with ample references. The color illustrations lighten the book sufficiently to soften any textbooky stigma.

Each chapter ended with review questions and exercises. Some of them were very interesting and creative, but if you are not in a classroom with an instructor who has access to the password-protected answers, you are on your own.

So the Web professional attracted to the material and learning on his own will inevitably feel a bit cheated out of the full value of the book.

The book came in fine, but without the softwear. The problem is that the publishing date was not clear when I bought it and the information is really out of date.

The seller provided me with good service in the purchase of my book needed for computer class as directed by the instructor. I received the book within the time designated by Amazon as an estimated time of shipment and arrival. I would buy from this seller again. Thanks!

We ordered the book for my son's freshman computer science class - I was concerned about making sure we had the right edition, etc, and not a single problem - fast turnaround - very pleased.

Done in a format similar to a computer magazine, the topics are covered in a succinct manner, mostly devoid of $20 words that only stroke the author's ego.

An enjoyable read (really!). New 7th edition now available. Probably equally as good. Be sure you order the correct one for your class!

As eBay has grown enormously, it has continually added new features, for both buyers and sellers. The complexities of which help drive the need for a book like this. Holden doesn't just confine himself to explaining procedures on the eBay website. He goes into ancillary topics like what the selling of seasonal items might involve, or the finding of wholesalers of items that you might buy from, and then resell on eBay.

While he discusses both buying and selling, you quickly find that the attention is focused on being a heavy seller. When you read elsewhere of people supporting themselves on eBay, it is by being these sellers. So a lot of the utility of the book is in the advice around building up sales, where the mechanics of running auctions is really a lesser detail.

His advice is generally good, with one important caveat. The book never really questions under what circumstances you might not want to sell on eBay. It does not discuss alternatives like Amazon, if you are selling non-collectible items like books, CDs, DVDs and software. eBay charges a listing fee, even if no bids are placed. And currently, some 53% of its auctions end with no bids. So the listing fees can significantly add to your cost, especially since an auction is just for 10 days at most. By contrast, Amazon levies no listing fees. Though if something sells on Amazon, its commission percentage is higher than eBay's. So there are tradeoffs. Plus, in recent years, eBay has repeatedly raised many of its fees. Leading to deep dissatisfaction from many of its largest sellers, who feel that the company is ripping them off.

The book would be of more use to a reader if it broached such topics.

Written by seasoned computer and internet writer Greg Holden, whose previous titles include "Internet Auctions for Dummies" and "Cliff Notes Guide to Buying and Selling on eBay", Degunking eBay is a resource especially for eBay buyers and sellers who are high on transaction volume, short on time, and need to make their eBay buying and selling activities as quick and clutter-free as possible. Chapters address how to swiftly look through massive numbers of product listings to find the right items, how to spruce up one's auction descriptions to make more money, how to take advantage of hot trends, how to maintain excellent feedback ratings, and much more. Designed especially to help novice to intermediate level eBay users, Degunking eBay includes tips directly from eBay's PowerSellers, and a "Quick Degunking Sheet" at the front of the book for easy reference. A "must-have" for anyone interested in amassing private collections from or making money off of eBay.

Have you ever been at a party where you get to talking with someone who has a very nice way about them. Very stylish, very engaging and the topic she's talking about is very trendy. You listen and interject some "oohs" and "ahs" and "I see" and "really, how interesting" but you begin to realize that almost everything the person is telling you is obvious. And you notice how they keep repeating this obvious information as if they were telling you the secrets of the universe. Well, that's how I felt while reading DEGUNKING EBAY by Greg Holden. Greg has a nice breezy way of communicating and Ebay is a word on everyone's lips.

Greg has come up with an all purpose catchphrase, degunk, which he uses quite liberally. Probably because he is promoting the DeGunking series of books.

After reading a few chapters I realized Greg was like that partygoer, a prophet of the obvious. Not that he doesn't have a wealth of information packed into the book, some of which can certainly help a Novice Ebayer. It's just that I feel there the book attempts to do too much.

The premise of the book is the entire universe of Ebay. Buying. Selling, AND degunking your computer. If you are not a PC Pro and you noticed your computer slowing down, the step by step clean-up techniques Greg shares are good.

The buying aspect is pretty straightforward. How to do better searches for items. How to bid more successfully. This is the stage at the party where you are really into talking with Greg. This takes you up to about page 77 in a 280 page book. Then the enthusiasm wanes.

The thought that the average person can start a sustainable business using Ebay is a very INTRIQUING. I'm sure it can be done-IF that person has a heartfelt passion for a craft, closeout merchandise, antiques, and a foundation of knowledge on the subject. If that kind of person reads this book for specific Ebay enhancing tips, the book will prove somewhat useful.

So much of the selling information is common sense: write good descriptions and take clear digital photos. I guess it doesn't hurt to read any of this.

On page 208 the author does indeed tell us to Focus on What You Love as a key to being a good seller.

A few times, Greg made me laugh out loud. That in itself is worth the cost of the book. For example, he writes "Some wholesalers are just interested in getting your money and not in providing you with a regular supply of quality products."
I am SHOCKED to hear that.

Hey, I like the way Greg writes and I bet if i met him at a party I'd listen avidly for awhile. And there maybe others at the party who might find everything that Greg says about Ebay to be fascinating and something they could put to use.

In summing up, if you buy Greg's book there is enough here that you will recoup your investment.

Although I thought Design Wise was easy to read, and did a wonderful job of summarizing the history of interface design, it fell well short of offering significant real world solutions. As a GUI designer, this book seemed to address the obvious problems, but only scratched the surface with general and vague solutions. Alison Head writes very well and did a great deal of research, if anything, her endnotes serve as a great reference for other GUI books. Ironically, this book about 'design' was poorly laid out, and the 'helpful vignettes' were plunked right in the middle of chapters, making it difficult to read. Maybe Allison's publisher should apply some of her design concepts to their own book.

This book is an reference guide for making decisions about computer based information resources. It covers CD-ROMs, web sites, and commercial databases. The first half of the book develops the design theory involved in human computer interfaces and the second half of the book shows how to apply that theory. The presentation of the material is well organized and flows in a logical manner. At the same time, the reader can dive into the book at any point, and completely comprehend the material or find useful items of information. It is an excellent reference guide because of the many tables, figures, and checklists that can be used immediately to make decisions on computer based information resources. At the same time, the coverage of the HCI theory and many reference resources make it an excellent text for learning more about HCI and design of computer based information resources. The interviews with experts in the field such as Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen, side bars on design interface issues, and the field tests of products such as the Southwest Airlines web site and Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia add to the readability and user friendly tone of the book. The variety of material makes the book interesting to read and hard to put aside. This is definitely an indispensable reference guide that will soon be worn from constant use

The Internet has become a leading source for all kinds of information. Government agencies, companies, organizations, schools, libraries, hobbyists, and others have placed just about anything and everything online. In doing so many have neglected the ease of which people searching online can find and access what they are looking for at the millions of Websites that adorn cyberspace.

Design Wise written by Alison Head addresses the need to evaluate and re-think the way Websites are designed in order to allow quick and easy access to the information provided by them. User-interface, navigation design, structure, and overall interaction should contribute to more effective accessing of information, not impede it. These matters require serious attention.

Head offers an insightful look into the world of software and Web development and delivers her own assessments for the need of change and future direction that may take place. Input from industry leaders, news about current trends in information sharing technology, actual case studies, her tips and recommended guidelines, and the question & answer format contribute to a very fine treatment of information sharing development.

With the flood of information resources available online and the move in direction to search for information online, providers of information who have set up Websites, databases, and search engines should take heed to Head's advice and begin creating resources that are more user-centered in design. This approach would allow people to quickly and easily find their way around and obtain the information they are looking for. All will benefit from the fresh ideas and concepts presented in this book!

One of the most common complaints about virtual world experiences is that the lack of physical sensations in the environment. Visual simulation is nearing photographic quality, and 3D sound is very convincing. But as soon as one touches a virtual object, or picks up a virtual car and tosses it into the next simulation, one has a great sense of incompleteness. "Why", the question is often asked, "can't I feel anything in this great virtual reality?"

There is no easy answer to that question, despite the millions of
dollars and thousands of hours spent trying to understand and
duplicate our incredibly subtle and complex haptic senses. However, at last, we can at least understand the magnitude of the problem, and the state of the art. Grigore Burdea, an Associate Professor at the CAIP Center of Rutgers University, spent most of last year engaged in research and writing about this missing dimension of VR. His new book, Force and Touch Feedback for Virtual Reality, is the result of that effort. As far as I know, there is no more complete or erudite book on the subject.

Burdea careful lays the groundwork for his survey of force feedback (resistive impulses, FFB) and tactile feedback (sensations of texture, temperature, etc., TFB) devices and concepts by providing a thorough background in human proprioception. He shares with the reader the fruits of his research: how the various receptors in the skin, muscles, bones and joints interact, how the nervous system perceives and conveys haptic data, reaction times and bandwidths of human response, and much more. He describes studies on the resolution of feeling, the average strength of various parts of the body, and time to fatigue. All in all, one is left with the impression that
Burdea is a man with a good feel for the subject.

Interestingly, reading this book made me all the more pessimistic
regarding our likelihood of ever having good FFB devices for general use. The problem is manifold. As Burdea points out, the range of forces that human beings are capable of feeling and reacting to is great. It spans several orders of magnitude, from the gentle caress of a lover brushing away a strand of hair, to the rough effort required to push a recalcitrant automobile.

Designing one device, even a hybrid device, to duplicate this range of force is a daunting concept. Furthermore, FFB devices must be grounded. That is, they must have something to push against. A portable FFB device would necessarily be of limited scope.

The outlook for TFB devices is much better. Because these devices are not resistive in nature, they can (indeed, should be) small and portable. A glove with an inner surface made of nano-mechanical effectors is conceivable, and could possibly provide realisticsensations of friction, slippage, texture, and other sensations. However, the likelihood of such a device being built in the next few years is slim.

Lacking any ideal solution, many experimenters and manufacturers,
Burdea among them, have developed limited force and tactile feedback devices. Many such devices, such as the (award-winning) Phantom, and the Impulse Engine, are commercially available and are finding acceptance in specialty applications. Most people in the VR business are familiar with the GROPE experiment carried out at UNC chapel Hill, in which a large FFB arm, designed for working with radioactive materiel, has been used to evaluate the value of FFB in molecular docking research. Medical simulation is an important use of FFB, and gamers are starting to see low-cost devices built into joysticks and other controllers. All of this, and a great deal more, is carefully covered in this book.

Were I giving a course in haptic simulation, this would be my text of choice. I recommend it without reservation to anyone considering adding haptic feedback to a simulation. If you haven't covered this material, you would need a lot of time to catch up. Luckily, Burdea has done it for us.

---

This review first appeared in CyberEdge Journal, October 1996.

© CyberEdge Information Services, Inc. 1996

This a great textbook on this new human-computer interface technology. The book is destined to become a classic of this field due to its in-depth, comprehensive treatment of the haptic technology. It was no suprise to me to see it is cited in many technical articles.

The book present not only technical data (actuators, force and touch feedback devices) but also the basic information related to human haptic sensing. In addition, the book complete its review of haptic systems with a chapter on human factors, which contains a collection of interesting experiments attesting the potential of this new technology. Unfortunately haptics is still in its infancy which makes it difficult to speculate on its future (as concluded in the last chapter).

In short the book will give you a good understanding of this new technology, being also a very good reference compendium.

There are two main good points to this book: 1) there are many citations (references), not only to articles but to companies mentioned; 2) tons of photos, though many I found insufficiently captioned (ie, only a person who's seen the device would understand it from the picture and text). Good explanation of basic haptic & VR concepts.

The main bad points are: either too terse or too superficial, no real insight, pedantic.

The two halves of the book were quite different. The second half of the book is more interesting, but first things first:

Basically, the first half of the book is a compilation of technical information on existing haptic devices and haptic software for VR applications. It's basically regurgitation of data, very terse, factual, and boring. No analysis or insight. More a reference. Loaded with truisms like (paraphrasing) "This device requires more force to activate, so it's found to increase fatigue quicker and potential for injury". Duh!

Second half of the book deals with applications: physical modelling (surface deformation, ...), human factors (how haptics affect tasks, ...), medical, etc. Short chapter on future trends, which again I found unenlightening. But there were a few good discussions here and there, about collision detection and the like, but I found they were few and far between.

In conclusion, what I mostly got out of this book were a few references to look up for further reading, an idea of the vaste array of technologies used in haptics, some pictures of real haptic devices, and an indigestion of technical facts. I got some insight into certain issues in collision detection, and some feeling for how limited and simplistic the field of VR haptics still is.

I would have liked to see more of a debate on whether certain applications were even sensible, how much computing power is required for certain tasks, etc. Not easy questions to answer, but why bother write a book with only stuff most people could figure out on their own?

I had already decided to grade this a four instead of five, in part because it makes me cranky when world-class authors such as the author of this book neglect other world-class pioneers because of their unwillingness to do a proper search outside their own narrow boundaries. I refer of course to Dick Klavens, Brad Ashford, and Katy Borner, whose Maps of Science are online and spectacular. Even Eugene Garfield, the inventor of citation analysis, gets short shrift.

That aside, the book is an essential reference. While it makes the needed point, that first generation visualization was about showing structure and relationships, and second generation visualization needs to be more dynamic and depict evolutionary and revolutionary changes and mutations (and I would add, provide early warning of anomalies and emergent patterns).

The last chapter, 8, on Detecting Abrupt Changes and Emerging Trends, is very interesting, but heavy on mathematics, and lacking in great detail, which reminds me this is really an overview text, and should be valued in that light. Two examples of fraud detection that I have personally seen as representative of the power of visualization include Dr. Bert Little's discover of $79 million in crop insurance fraud among roughly seven insurance agents and 20+ specific farmers; and the brilliant work of Dr. Simon J. Pak and Dr. John S. Zdanowicz who found $5o billion a year in import-export tax fraud (and Colombian coffee cans marked one pound and weighing 1.5 pounds) through their exploitation of public Department of Commerce databases.

This book has been assigned to our senior working technical person along with three others listed below.
A New Ecology: Systems Perspective, Sven Jorgensen et al (Elsevier, 2007), not on Amazon that I could find
Handbook of Data Visualization (Springer Handbooks of Computational Statistics) (Springer Handbooks of Computational Statistics)
Information Visualization: Beyond the Horizon
Building Trustworthy Semantic Webs

For myself, I put the book down thinking to myself, citation analysis is all well and good, but how do we integrate co-visualization of content, geospatial, money (e.g. "true costs" of each aspect or attribute)?

I continue to admire the work of Peter Morville, such as Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become. His name does not appear in the index either. See also: Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business

This is a beautiful book, with many color images. While it includes a large number of excellent figures, and covers a wide range techniques and systems, the text is not, however, a good starting point for a newcomer to the field. (See Card, et al, "Readings in Information Visualization" for a starting point.) This book should be used as a pointer to the literature, which provide the missing details. It covers a wide range techniques, and is worth having.

Chen gives a masterful excursion into how information can be visualised. A major aim is that it is presented in a way that a human can see a large mass of data in a meaningful manner. Hence many techniques are shown in numerous colour diagrams that are an indispensible part of the book. Indeed, the book would lack much meaning without those diagrams!

The display ideas have mostly been developed in the last 15 years. In part due to increasing computational power and graphics, that makes such displaying feasible. But another driving force has been the Web. And within this, the Virtual Reality Markup Language. Various proponents, like Blaxxsun, have built VRML worlds in which data can be shown. And in which users can browse. Often in a multiuser mode.

One lesson from the text is that simulated annealing is simply too computationally intensive for deciding how to make a graph with #nodes > 100 or so. It's certainly a nice idea. But sadly only for smaller graphs.

There is an interesting discussion on topic analysis and display. A harder problem than "merely" dealing at the document level. But the results shown seem rather limited. Much more work is needed here.

If you are from physics, you should note that an extensive, protracted example of superstring research was used by Chen. He showed his own research in how key papers could be found via co-citation analysis and graphing. This was to tackle the general problem of trying to find trends and paradigm shifts in scientific research.

This book has very poor standards. As soon as I open the book to read, I didn't like it at all. This is good one for COBOL programers, who wants to learn Clist or REXX.

I intendent to learn Clist and REXX.

I needed the product for work. The response was timely and the price was fair.

This book presents a complete picture of the MVS environment with chapters on REXX, CLISTs, Dialog Manager, TSO commands among others. While it does not have the complete syntax for any of these components, it is a good starting point for all of them, and one of the few reference books to cover all of them in one book. This allows the author to show the interaction between the components. In all, a very helpful book for the MVS developer.

The book that I ordered arrived in a timely manner and in good condition. Shopping online for books for school has been a budget saver.

YN

Taylor Cox Jr. and Ruby L. Beale offer readings, case studies and structured activities for developing individual and organizational diversity skills. The readings often focus on specific groups, but the underlying ideas can easily be extended to others. By focusing on the economic benefits of diversity management, the authors make a persuasive case that these ideas are strategically relevant, especially for companies that are trying to compete in the global economy. Some of the ideas are complex and take some real study, but they are presented clearly and concisely. The book offers little original research, but that is not the authors' goal. They mean to unite existing research and to put those ideas into action - a task that they perform very well. We at getAbstract recommend this book to human resource professionals, managers who must handle diverse workforces (especially executives who work outside their home country) and anyone struggling with diversity in the workplace.

What do musicians, artists, linguists, Buddhist monks, and computers have in common? This book takles this broad scope with some very interesting revelations. The author has a Ph.D. in computer science and an undergraduate degree in eastern & western philosophy. Thus, the title and the Buddhist angle.

This books reads easily and is very entertaining. Coming from an engineering background, I appreciated the author's structured writing style. That is, he does not meander or get flowery with his words. He states his facts, makes his points, and moves on. The reader does not get overwelmed with too much detail or historical data, but an extensive bibliography is available for the curious. The plenitude of charts and illustrations is helpful and at times a necessity.

In the beginning of the book the author keeps each subject separate: one chapter dedicated to linguistics, another chapter to abstract art, etc. Slowly he begins to reveal how all these areas mesh, which left me anticipating a climatic revelation that would tie it all together. However, I found the conclusion to be somewhat anti-climatic involving the future of virtual reality and the author's own eastern religious beliefs.

If you are a musician, artist, linquists, or work with computers and you have ever wondered why you think the way you think, definitely read this book. It will open your eyes and broaden your horizons immensly. Caution: if you are looking for "how to" information, technical details, or references to the latest/greatest equipment, it's not what this book is about.

This beautifully written book offers interesting sections into the history of algorithmic thinking in the arts, and builds a concept of the computer use in art thereon, embedded in a context of indian mythology. It is the best book combining music and visual arts in this respect that I have read so far and its concepts will certainly and hopefully be quite influential on the producers of new media work. Musicians might find the chapter on serial music a little superficial, as visual artists might perceive the one on Kandinsky's work, and I am not so sure whether I agree with the author's personal "unified theory" presented in the last chapters of the book, but the strength lies in the combination, and if you are looking for a general introduction, it is a stimulating overview that serves as a great starting point for further studies. In comparison to Hofstaedters "Goedel, Escher, Bach" this one feels more relaxed and undogmatic and stays with topics of abstract language and generative grammars, instead of trying to hammer a cynical anti-spiritual pseudo-religion into your brain.

I've never read this book but the title caught my eye. so I decided to wright a review on that (the title)... yeah... uh... It took me into the depth of Virtual reality! the end

This was the first book I purchased about VR and it clearly exceeded my expectations! The author does an excellent job of describing the basics of VR: its concepts and terms, benefits, human factors, hardware/software, and applications. The book is choke full of figures and color plates which the author skillfully uses to highlight and illustrate his points. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to begin learning about VR.