Human Interaction Books

I picked this text for my virtual reality course here at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory and found it to be an excellent, well written, comprehensive introduction to the field.

It is interesting this book, since gives a complete visualization of the current virtual reality. In form didactics it travels all the fields of the VR, not serving alone for a neophyte, also for somebody that the VR knows. Very good book
Hugo Neira S

I received this book shortly after it was published. Since then it has served well as a reference for my students working in my VR research group, as well as being very enlightening for me as well.
I will be teaching a course on VR the next two spring semesters at Valparaiso University, and will be using this text.
The book does a great job of spanning the current VR technology out there, as well as addressing issues for development. I'd recommend it for VR researchers, as well as those teaching VR at the undergrad or grad level.

Understanding Virtual Reality" is the definitive, authoritative, and exhausive exploration of the field by two insiders and practioners, Sherman and Craig. Virtual reality, a uniquely viewer-centric, large field-of-view, dynamic display technology has evolved over the past decade in many physical formats, driven by many software applications using a variety of operating systems, computers, and specialized libraries. Sherman and Craig capture them all in this substantial volume.

Most writing about virtual reality involves summarizing and interpreting interviews and demos, with massive doses of the speculative and the spectacular, and lots of historical fuzziness. Sherman and Craig, however, lived in the world of actual VR production at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where corporate researchers, educators, scientists, and artists make use of this technology in their daily work. They have personally suffered with VR tech and benefited greatly from access to it as well as to amazing amounts of computing, engineering, and scientific talent. They were held to real deadlines of corporate contracts, scientific conference demonstrations, and the design of IMAX productions. While they were doing all this, they were also writing this book. As a result, "Understanding Virtual Reality" has the integrity and feel of a long-term, eyewitness account and a personal journal, because these production-oriented researchers were documenting the times contemporaneously, rather than trying to reconstruct the details years later.

I know all this because I was their group leader for a couple of years in the mid-90's at NCSA, and their colleague in VR the years before and after. I co-invented the CAVE hardware, among other things, with Dan Sandin at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in 1991.

The unique approach to handing the history of `virtual art' is scholarly and innovative, undermining popular conceptions of the notion of `virtuality'. I would have appreciated colour plates, since the subject matter often pertains to the study of many forms of visual art. A glossary of terms also would have been helpful. The addition of these to elements would make the book much more accessible to readers who are introducing themselves to these concepts and artworks.

Broad in breadth and depth, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion traces the history of virtual art through studying the history of `immersion' and `illusion' in the arts, and relates these ideas to the current developments in `virtual reality'. It is unlikely that the general public, or even most arts professionals, would consider the panoramic frescoes of ancient Pompeii a precursor to the 1980's notion of goggled cybernetic digitalia, nor the recent developments in transgenic art, yet this book includes very convincing arguments that link these ideas to the development of today's virtual art. Self-proclaimed as the `first' to link art history and immersive visual culture to the field of contemporary digital environment-based art experiences, this innovative and convincing research is laid out before the reader in an intellectual, yet accessible fashion, complete with diagrams and illustrations to illuminate key ideas. Many interesting works of art are chronicled here, placed within a contextual framework that demonstrates the significance of the ideas and technology supporting the works. Gathering this information in a print format also allows these works to live on and influence other thinkers outside of directly experiencing the works, which is often not technically possible, given the temporal nature of many immersion-based artworks. Ideas do not develop in a vacuum, but through the dialogues of overlapping discourses, combined with critical thought. Grau demonstrates that virtual art is not exactly new, and it satisfies a basic human desire for experiencing the `other', whether through looking at panoramic paintings of mythology or faraway lands, or designing a prototype Holodeck (Star Trek). Unexpected parallels abound, making this a very informative read that may forever change the reader's interpretations of classical art history as well as of virtual reality.

It is likely that Grau reaches the academic arts audience he sets out to reach with this book, as is demonstrated by the numerous references to this book online, in various journals, blogs, and academic websites. This focus on art history as media history would be thoroughly appreciated by Marshall McLuhan fans, as well as art historians who specialize in media studies. Artists and historians interested in 3-D modeling, avatar development, online immersive environments, transgenic art, and historical instances of illusion in the arts will also find this book a valuable and up-to-date resource. This book would make a welcome addition to a University library, a gallery or artist-run centre's library, or the personal collection of savvy technophiles.

WIRED spoke about a "great read" and Lev Manovich decribed Grau's book as a "must-read for anyone interested in new media, art history, and any field using virtual images." - Grau lives up to expectations !  He analyzes what is new in media art by balancing recent works and historic media development, and so retells art history as media history. An interdisciplinary study in art history, media history, and new media art, the cross fertilization enriches his analysis and helps clarify the essence of immersion and Virtual Reality.  Beyond Grau's analysis, I was thankful to see so many artists involved - many hot names. This book will be valuable for both practitioners and theoreticians. Hopefully there will be a paperback soon for students.

This book is an excellent rendition for electro-visual labs.
The work is perfect if you are looking for new ideas on interior
decorating for the home. There are many exotic art forms
depicted in this work.

Virtual reality is integrated into art immersion. The work
provides a panoramic view of the Battle of Sedan. There are
pictures of the Futurama in the 1939 World Fair. In addition,
a screenshot portrays the Home of the Brain. The work is
excellent for anticipated student school projects.
This work is perfect for art enthusiasts, historians,
interior decorators, architects , photographers and a whole
host of professionals in varied fields.

This book is a outstanding contribution to the upcoming new field image science.

Michael Heim has written a very balanced look at Virtual Reality. In fact, he has even coined a term for it; Virtual Realism, to contrast with the over hyped ramblings of the "network idealists". I found myself taking time to savor this book. It is not a page turner in the proverbial sense. Rather the book causes one to calmly meditate on the current "Art of Virtual Reality". It also introduces novel (to me anyway) concepts such as two models of virtual world building: the tunnel and the spiral. One of the final chapters goes in depth about Nature and Cyberspace, something that I had never considered in the same thought. Despite being about a subject that is somewhat "out there" this book was very approachable. If you are at all remotely interested in man and computers, networks, the nature of reality or other philosophical topics central to the new millenium then buy this book. Read it carefully. Enjoy.

Michael Heim's "Virtual Realism" is a critical yet pragmatic exploration of the present state and future evolution of virtual reality (VR) technology. Unlike much of the predominate rhetoric of VR theory, Heim's does not situate himself as either a VR idealist or alarmist, but instead offers a strategy for reconciling these polar positions by way of a critical, yet pragmatic analysis called "virtual realism". What is most is interesting about this book is the eclectic array of examples Heim's uses to support and illustrate his strategy. By drawing on examples as diverse as interactive art exhibits, the music of Glenn Gould and Jim Morrison, and extending to nuclear waste sites, he envisions a not only better ways to live with technology, but ways to make technology more humane. Heim's writing is both eloquent and accessible making "Virtual Realism" an insightful study for anyone interested in the impact of technology on our social and physical environment.

Michael Heim, in Virtual Realism , "dedicated to those minds at large who find no home in the established schools", explores the many ways in which virtual reality is increasingly influencing our lives. These techniques are both challenging the content of the normative design arts, and extending the boundaries of thought.

VR realism mixes traditional aesthetic criticism with aditional questions of immersion, interactivity, and information intensity. Virtual realism steers a course between the idealists who believe computerised life represents a higher form of existence and the down-to-earth realists who fear that computer simulations threaten ecological and local values. Further, a spacemaker is a designer of cyberspace constructs like a filmaker.

Riley, in The Visible, The Visual and The Vicarious, comments, "The real landscape often gives rise to an internally experienced landscape that is far richer that the "real" landscape. Such fantasy landscapes are open-ended in interpretation and may define the boundaries of postmodern existence."

Virtual, imaginary, and film art landscapes are more numerous and perhaps more significant than real landscapes.

Copyright 1998 Robert Hotten

This is the latest in a series of books by Michael Heim on the human changes, both good and bad, wrought by the introduction of computers. Virtual Realism in particular seeks to find a balance between a retreat from technology and the wholesale embrace of it without regard for the consequences. He starts out defining the technology of virtual reality in such a way as to understand the strong reactions to it. He follows with a series of essays seeking to find the balance implied by the title. This is an accessible but always interesting book not requiring an extensive technical or philosophical background. His analysis is not exhaustive or linear, but that is not his intent. He brings up and ponders the big issues involved with human adoption of and adaptation to a powerful new technology.

This is a major work on the redesign of the human/computer interface. It is well written but very deep. Excellent academic research is clearly demonstrate throughout. I would not say, however, that it is an easy read.

Engineering research does not generally have to be as strongly academically founded as scientific research. The controlling factor is "does it work," not how does it relate to previous work. This tendency leads to problems when it is necessary to do multidisciplinary work involving both engineering and science. The redesign of the human/computer interface is just such a problem.

As an engineer working independently in this field, I have often wished for the time and resources to do proper academic studies. Paul Dourish has now done them for me. All my future publications will have to show consistency with this book, show they are clearly outside the area covered by this book, or show the book is wrong. The last alternative is most unlikely. I think I can show my work, based on Darwinism and ontology, complies with the first option. I am certain that my work will be stronger for this effort.

A very interesting, and yet clear to read and follow book. "Where the action is" was a reading reference for my qualifier exam and after reading it I was hooked up to HCI forever. Very exciting and a "must read" for all HCI researchers.

This is one of the more influential books to grace the HCI academic's shelf in recent years. Dourish's thesis, that tangible and social computing have their genesis in a sense of embeddedness in our real world and not some foreign, constructed environment known as "The OS," is stimulating material but does not dramatically change my outlook on the topic. However, it does a good job of providing useful terms and theory to support our intuition surrounding why TUIs and CSCW are useful things. I also believe that the author's goal of providing a sound philosophical and theoretical groundwork for HCI in general is a great idea, as there are few works that deliver well on this promise. As someone with limited exposure to computer-supported cooperative work before reading this book, I have to say that Dourish also has some excellent (and very readable) reviews of the most important literature in both tangible and social computing, giving a newcomer solid ground from which to consider new research.

One of the strong sides of this book is that it makes it really easy for the reader - things are generally summarised and repeated exactly in the right places. It can serve as an introduction to the world of phenomenology, sociology and philosophy as pertaining to Human-Computer Interfaces.
It felt more like a mixture between a proposal and an introductory philosophical treatise than an overview of the current state of the field (it carries the word "foundations" in its title for a reason).
After reading it however, I still wasn't convinced that "social computing", "tangible computing" and "embodied interaction" really add up to a construct that can effectively inform the design of new HCI devices even though this claim was repeated throughout the book almost like a prayer wheel.
Interestingly, while the book points out the meaning of embodyment in already existing work practices, it fails to give any strategies on how these theories can actually be applied to the design of effective new HCI devices that go beyond the shiny toys produced at MIT Media Lab.
The loophole seems to be that embodied practices can only arise once the tools are defined, so that it is hard to predict what practices will be used once it's out there - since the way we use tools is largely improvisatory, as Dourish points out.
I also can not stop to wonder if the term "embodyment" is akin to "multi-media" - a belief system that can mean so many things that it effectively desintegrates sooner or later.

So, while it left me not exactly sure that there really is another end to it, it was certainly worth and inspiring to work through this book in a thorough manner - I now feel courageous enough to put my nose into "Being and Time" by Heidegger.
A friendly way to get your brain going!

This book has been a very helpful tool; it has helped me by giving me easy to follow sample programs. Having these examples to follow has given me the opportunity to find out what my mistakes were and correct them with less hassle. This book is a great tool for any student programming in more than one language. It teaches by examples, giving a hands-on approach to each example. Out of all of the books that I had to use to complete my project, this one book is the one that I constantly came back to look up any problems that occurred. With out this book my research this summer would have been a very difficult task, but with the sample coding to guide me through, I have produced a great project.

This is a terrific interfacing program book so far I have found in this site. The book provides a thorough description and detailed illustrations in interfacing programming between different languages with a lot of hands-on examples. As everybody knows, the easiest way to learn a programming language is via examples. I found that this book is an example-oriented one, and it combines theoretical knowledge with the practical programming techniques together to show me how to develop interfacing programs step by step.

Besides the interfacing technology, the author seems to have a deep understanding for each programming language. I found that in chapters, the author provides some useful hands-on technologies, such as the pseudo-components in the Visual Basic to access the
Database, recovering the developed program codes in VisualWorks in Smalltalk and developing a DLL in MATLAB. I cannot find those hands-on technologies from any other textbooks or professional language reference books in the market.

Finally, this book provides me an easy-to-learn style, which means that each example in the book starts from the fundamental level, and little by little, it gradually adds more complicated components and finally I can get a finished program that contains the completed parts I need to interface to codes developed in other language.

This book takes the theoretical ideas that are present in other programming books and makes it a reality. With easy to follow, practical examples, it guides the reader through techniques to communicate between different programming languages. Finally, there is a book that makes understanding how to relate information across the languages barriers a simple task. And with seven different languages, it is the only comprehensive work to do so. It was very helpful to me, because I needed to be able to send messages between two different pieces of code that I didn't have the time to rewrite. The thorough examples allowed me to quickly learn how to use the techniques and expand upon them so that it would do that which I needed it to. I learned a lot of things from this book that, previously, I didn't know were possible.

Everyone should read this book. It is definately not just for Doctors. I think knowing what is expected of Doctor and patient alike is very important as far as touch is concerned. I had some questions about what is and is not acceptable in the Doctor's office. This book made that very clear. The book is very easy to read and understand. I would recomend, Behind Closed Doors to everyone.

Everyone should read this book. It is definately not just for Doctors. I think knowing what is expected of Doctor and patient alike is very important as far as touch is concerned. I had some questions about what is and is not acceptable in the Doctor's office. This book made that very clear. The book is very easy to read and understand. I would recomend, Behind Closed Doors to everyone.

Any health professional that thinks they don't need to learn more about this topic is naive. Dr.Redleaf delivers a thought-provoking book that can help doctors better serve their patients and protect themselves.

Professor Holmes covered the computer scene in a series of critical essays in IEEE's "Computer" journal that aroused more discussion and counter discussion from readers than I have even seen. Holmes defended his viewpoints ably, though I itched to add my disagreements and appreciations to the letter writers. I believe the book profits from that interchange of ideas. I found it fascinating.

This is a very unusual book in that it contains articles about computers and their impact on human beings from a somewhat academic standpoint. I found the articles themselves to be fascinating, but be prepared for something that is not just a light breezy read, as the articles tackle such issues as computer intelligence versus computer take-over, computer-based customer service that goes awry, and improving students' basic skills via drill and practice using simple video gaming techniques. You don't need to be a computer scientist to appreciate the book, but it helps to be someone who is acquainted with current trends in computer technology as well someone who is interested in how computers can help solve some of the social, academic, and economic problems in our world. The author keeps his articles interesting by injecting quite a bit of humor into his work at appropriate points. I highly recommend it.

Once in a while each of us in the computer industry has to sit back and think about the overal aspects of the industry. How do we really interface with the non-computing world? What does the non-computing world think of us? And where are the two of us going?

These essays are broken down into six categories:

The Basis of Computing
Computing So Far
Computers and Education
Computing and Prodessions
The Potential of Computing
Facing the Future
Technical Details.

They are written by the editor of the feature column 'The Profession' in the IEEE Computer Society's flagship magazine 'Computer.'

It is clear that computers, especially when connected to the Internet offer capabilities that simply never existed before such as access to a worldwide library of information. Likewise there is the opportunity for organizations like terrorist organizations to spread their message of hatred and to provide untraceable communications.

Mr. Holmes provides an overall insight that is rarely seen. These articles are highly recommended.

Everyone involved in usability needs a highlighted, or bookmarked iwth post-it notes, copy of this book. Its always powerful to back up how important usability is to others who are unfamiliar with its power, be it your team or a client, and this book shows you how to do figure out the return of investment with dollars, something everyone understands. Overall, it gets the point across by showing readers how to do it for themselves with formulas that are not all that difficult at all, and where to pull numbers from to calculate the ROI.

If you are looking for help with quantifying the cost of bad interface design and/or how poorly designed application costs the company money, then this is the book for you.

This book is practical and right on target for helping IT groups and customers understand the importance of systems that allow work to be completed efficiently. The authors do a great job quantifying the cost of poorly design, unusable system.

If you have ever tried to demonstrate to an IT group that it is more costly not to change the system, then this book will give you the strategy for showing how investing in system changes actually costs less in the short term, than in the long term.

End users will cheer anyone who applies the information in this book to the applications they use.

Bite the bullet, buy the book. in these days of cut budgets, you must be able to justify your worth. There are formulas in this book that anyone designing software or digital products can use-- not just usability geeks. IA's, designers, GUI kids... time to learn the math.

Leave this book where your guests can pick it up and plop down on the sofa while you fix drinks, snacks or whatever. Its written in non-technical language for ages 10 to 100. Every person I've encountered gets pulled right into it in about 30 seconds. It is a universal interest grabber.

Three pages into the book, there's the Contents page listing 31 essays on the whole spectrum of NORMAL human behavior. The essays are 4 to 10 pages long with evocative color pictures of normal people being, well... human.

The full spectrum of human behavior is covered. Who could resist essays like, 4. Using Body Language; 8. Making Eye Contact; 16. Why Relationships Matter; 25. Finding a Partner; 28. Enjoying a Sexual Relationship; and 30. Breaking Up.

There's an Appendix titled How Psychology Works: two pages of fascinating reading on how the scientific method is applied to understanding human behavior. This is followed by references to Further Reading for each of the essays. And, of course, an Index.

Highly recommended for any human being who expects to encounter other human beings.

This is a very good book. It makes extensive use of pictures to explain the non-verbal communication of people. It is also a cross cultural refrence, though most of the emphisis is on the English people.

Eye to Eye is about how humans interact, replete with excellent glossy photos and an engaging text. Its one of those books you can open on any page and just start reading...

A definate must for the Ergo student! The book has excellent describtive definitions and is an eye opener to the world of work. It focus on a diffirent perspective on the qaulity of worklife.

"Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics" is an excellent seminal work on human factors and ergonomics. It is a well researched and well written book on the subject, well illustrated with case studies, examples, tables and figures.

The book has a comprehensive coverage of the subject and covers a wide range of subjects and applications which makes it an indispensable part of the library for human factor and ergonomics practitioners, safety managers and auditors, engineers and other specialists. This weighty tome is worth the price and should not intimidate the reader.

Pardon the cliche but if you're only going to buy one 'hand' book (it's more like a phone book), this is the one you should get. It covers conventional physical ergonomics, as well as every other significant genre in the field.
When I'm stuck for a quality resource, I find what I need here. Ouch! I'm still paying for it though.