- Adler, P., Winograd, T. (eds, 1992) Usability: Turning technologies into tools.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
* This book, which came out of a 1990 seminar on the effects of technology
on future work, contains seven chapters on usability from a work perspective.
The presentation is broader than the traditional HCI notion of usability in
that it entails the development of whole systems, including their effects on
work and the changing work conditions. The book is very useful as an illustration
of what the field of information systems development can contribute to HCI.
-
Baecker, R., Grudin, J., Buxton, W., Greenberg, S. (eds, 1995) Readings in
human-computer interaction: Toward the year 2000. Second edition. San Francisco:
Morgan Kaufmann.
-
* An excellent collection of scientific HCI papers that, at the time of writing
(March -96), feels current and relevant. The coverage of the field is very
good; I particularly like that there are some hints on the relations between
HCI and systems development. The editorial introductions to every part provide
very useful overviews and many references beyond the readings in the book.
The main drawback is that most papers are reprinted from the original sources,
sometimes with fairly low print quality, which makes some of the pictures less
valuable.
* How to design usable systems. This delightful paper, originally written in
1988, presents many informal methods and how they are applied to the usability
design process.
* User technology: From pointing to pondering.
* in Chapter 5: Brad Myers, State of the art in user interface software tools
introduction to Chapter 7: Touch, Gesture, and Marking all of Chapter 8: Speech,
Language, and Audition
* Chapter 2: Design and evaluation. This overview summarizes the fit between
design and evaluation.
-
Barfield, L. (1993) The user interface: Concepts and design. Wokingham, UK:
Addison-Wesley.
-
* This book is aimed at interaction designers to be, and intends to offer a
suitable set of tools for thought: concepts, notations and some basic values.
The structure is unusual in the sense that it starts with general design and
gradually focuses on interactive computer systems, but it covers much of the
contents found in conventional HCI books. The author is very good at finding
examples for his ideas and writes in a readable and accessible way. I think
the book would work very well in an introductory course if empirically oriented
methods and exercises are addressed on the side.
-
Bentley, R., Hughes, J.A., Randall, D., Rodden, T., Sawyer, P., Shapiro, D.
and Summerville, I. (1992) Ethnographically-informed systems design for air
traffic control, in Proc CSCW'92, p123-129, November.
-
Bias, R.G. (1994) Chapter 3: The pluralistic usability walkthrough: Coordinated
Empathies. In J. Nielsen and R. Mack (eds) Usability Inspection Methods, p63-76,
Wiley and Sons.
-
* Describe the steps in the pluralistic walkthough process.
Bias, R., Mayhew, D. (eds, 1994) Cost-justifying usability. Boston: Academic
Press.
-
* Financial justification for usability work is the topic of this collection.
Several examples of cost-benefit analyses are presented, where the authors
demonstrate numerous ways of calculating the costs and revenues of usability
activities in systems development. There are also chapters on the economy of
reuse, suggested designs for tools supporting financial analysis, and discussions
of how usability work can be introduced into a development organization. The
quality of the contributions is variable, but the book can nevertheless be
recommended to anybody looking for arguments in favor of usability work.
-
Booth, P. (1989) An introduction to human-computer interaction. London: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
-
* A introductory textbook covering interaction principles and techniques as
well as cognitive models, usability and usability-oriented development approaches.
The level of description is fairly superficial, which means that the book serves
as a useful introduction but hardly as a resource for deeper studies.
-
Borenstein, N. (1991) Programming as if people mattered. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
-
* This book was written by a programmer who has learnt about user interface
design by making all the mistakes. It contains many amusing stories about failed
designs, and there is also an excellent discussion of the conceptual differences
between user-oriented design and software engineering.
-
Bowers, J. (1994) The work to make the network work: Studying CSCW in action.
In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work,
p287-298, ACM Press.
- Bush, Vannevar. "As We May Think". Originally published in Atlantic
Monthly, 1945. Reprinted with permission in interactions, Volume III.2,
pp. 35--46.
-
* Chapter 2, The Human Information Processor, pp. 23-97.
-
Card, S., Moran, T., and Newel, A. (1980) The keystroke level model for user
performance time with interactive systems. Communications of the ACM, 23(7),
p396-410, ACM Press.
-
* The original paper describing the model.
-
Card, S. (1996) Pioneers and settlers: Methods used in successful user interface
design. In M. Rudisill, C. Lewis, P. Polson and T. McKay (eds) Human-Computer
Interface Design: Success Stories, Emerging Methods, and Real-World Context,
p122-169, Morgan-Kaufmann.
-
* Successful systems are reconsidered against a variety of design and evaluation
methods as well as real deployment requirements.
-
Card, S., Moran, T., Newell, A. (1983) The psychology of human-computer interaction.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
-
* This is a milestone in psychology-based HCI. It describes a cognitive model
of human expert interaction with computers and illustrates how it can be used
to explain and predict behavior. Household concepts like GOMS and the keystroke
level model all have their origins here.
- Carroll, J. M. (1982). The adventure of getting to know a computer. IEEE
Computer, 15(11), 49-58.
- Carroll, J. M. (1990). The Nurnberg Funnel: Designing Minimalist Instruction
for Practical Computer Skill. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
-
Casey, S. (1993) Set phasers on stun --- And other true tales of design, technology
and human error. Santa Barbara: Aegean Publishing Company.
-
* The author, an experienced human factors consultant, has collected 18 true
stories about the sometimes horrible effects of human-technology misfit. Some
of the stories are about computer systems, whereas others address aircraft,
buildings and medical technology. The stories are written in a readable, journalistic
style and make very good material for anybody who wants to make the case that
HCI is important.
-
Collins, D. (1995) Designing object-oriented user interfaces. Redwood City,
CA: Benjamin Cummings.
-
* There is currently a lot of talk about the need to integrate HCI with systems
development and software engineering, but this is one of the first books to
give it an honest try. The author rightly points out that object-oriented development
models are very suitable for the analysis and construction of object-oriented
user interfaces. He covers basic HCI knowledge, some systems analysis and a
fair amount of user interface programming (in Smalltalk and C++). The listing
and discussion of different classes of metaphors for object-oriented user interface
is a particularly interesting feature. To be useful in teaching and practice,
this book should be complemented with some literature on usability-oriented
methods, and specifically usability evaluation.
-
Cooper, A. (1995) About face: The essentials of user interface design. Foster
City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide.
-
* This is an exhaustive discussion of graphical user-interface design, particularly
oriented towards Windows. The author starts from a work-oriented perspective
on computer use and demonstrates how a graphical user-interface can be designed
to support productivity and learning on different levels. Interaction techniques
and widgets are dealt with in detail and the vocabulary introduced by the author
should be very useful. There are also some significant ideas of wider scope,
such as re-designing file systems, using animation in the interface, and endowing
programs with memory. The writing style is easy-going and sometimes a bit colloquial,
but the book is very accessible and generously illustrated. The author consistently
writes as a designer rather than a usability expert, something that is sorely
needed in the HCI field. On the whole, the book should be very valuable for
interaction designers who need to build up their graphical user-interface repertoire.
-
Cox, K., Walker, D. (1993) User-interface design. Second edition. New York:
Prentice Hall.
-
* This is an introductory textbook for practically oriented HCI courses. It
is firmly based in a systems development perspective and covers topics such
as usability testing, dialogue design and user documentation. Each chapter
has a rich set of exercises, some of which are very good.
- Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Csikszentmihalyi, I. S. (1988). Optimal
experience: psychological studies of flow in consciousness. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
-
Diaper, D. (1990) Task analysis for human-computer interaction. Chichester:
Ellis Horwood.
-
* This is a good example of the formal task analysis tradition within HCI.
The techniques presented in the book are accessible and presumably useful,
if they are combined with a more comprehensive systems development model.
- diSessa, A. A. (1986). Notes on the future of programming: Breaking the
utility barrier. In S. W. Draper & D. A. Norman (Eds.) User Centered
System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
-
Dix, A., Finlay, J., Abowd, G., Beale, R. (1993) Human-computer interaction.
New York: Prentice Hall.
-
* chapter 11 briefly surveys a variety of methodologies, and is a useful overview.
* An ambitious attempt to write a comprehensive textbook, starting with discussions
of humans, computers and interaction from an HCI perspective. It moves on to
nine chapters on different aspects of the usability-oriented development process
and closes with a number of advanced topics (multimedia, CSCW, etc). On the
whole a useful book, but I find it incoherent in places. Also, I personally
think that the authors overestimate the role and value of formal methods.
-
Downton, A. (ed, 1991) Engineering the human-computer interface. Maidenhead:
McGraw-Hill.
-
* Being a collection of chapters written by British HCI experts, it obviously
lacks the coherence of a regular textbook. On the other hand, the scope and
coverage is considerable. For example, there are chapters of applied psychological
research and knowledge analysis that would not be expected in a textbook. The
core areas of HCI are also covered decently. Appended are two very detailed
case studies of usability evaluations, something that an interested student
may find very useful.
-
Dumas, J., Redish, J. (1993) A practical guide to usability testing. Norwood,
NJ: Ablex.
-
* You wouldn't believe that there is so much to know about usability testing.
The authors use 24 chapters and close to 400 pages to discuss what usability
is, how to plan and perform an evaluation and how to use the results most efficiently.
The book is full of practical hints and the authors share generously of their
experience in the field. I think that the book will be extremely useful to
the reader who has understood the purpose and ideas of usability work and is
about to get started. However, it is hardly usable as a standalone textbook
since it does not cover the alternatives to usability testing.
-
Eberts, R.E. (1994) Extracts from User Interface Design, Prentice Hall.
-
* A general and high level introduction to experimental design. Extracts are:
Chapter 4: Experimental methodology; Chapter 5: Experimental designs and analysis;
Chapter 6: Hazards to conducting and interpreting HCI experiments
-
Ehrlich, K., Butler, M. and Pernce, K. (1994) Getting the whole team into usability
testing. IEEE Software, p89-90.
-
Endesly, M. (1995) Measurement of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human
Factors, 37(1), p65-84.
- James Foley, Andries van Dam, Steven Feiner & John Hughes, Computer
Graphics, 2nd Edition Addison-Wesley, 1990.
-
* Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 8: Input devices, interaction techniques,
and interaction tasks Chapter 9: Dialogue Design Chapter 10: User Interface
Software
-
Gardiner, M., Christie, B. (eds, 1987) Applying cognitive psychology to user-interface
design. Chichester: John Wiley.
-
* There are numerous books on psychology and other behavioral and social sciences
of relevance for HCI. When this one was written, it was distinctive in that
the authors tried to focus on the relations between psychology and user interface
design. The result is a survey of relevant psychological knowledge and a set
of design guidelines derived from that knowledge. In that respect, it is similar
to Mayhew (1992).
- Gaver, W. W. (1991). Technology affordances. Proceedings of the
CHI 91 Conference on Computer and Human Interaction. 1991, March. New
York: ACM.
-
Gould, J., Conti, J., and Hovanyecz, T. (1981) Composing letters with a simulated
listening typewritter. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems, p367-370. ACM Press.
- Gould, J. D., & Lewis, C. (1987). Designing for usability: Key principles
and what designers think. In R. M. Baecker & W. A. S. Buxton (Eds)
Readings in Human Computer Interaction. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufman.
-
Gray, W., John, B., Stuart, R, Lawrence, D. and Atwood, M. (1996) GOMS meets
the phone company: Analytic modeling applied to real world problems. In R.
Baecker, J. Grudin, W. Buxton and S. Greenberg (eds) Readings in Human Computer
Interaction: Towards the Year 2000, p634-639, Morgan-Kaufmann. ** Another case
study of GOMS in use.
-
Greenbaum, J., Kyng, M. (eds, 1991) Design at work: Cooperative design of computer
systems. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
-
This is an excellent collection of practical techniques and methods within
the systems development philosophy known as participatory design. Considering
the increasing interest in socially oriented development approaches within
HCI, this book can be recommended as a resource for the practically oriented.
Schuler and Namioka (1993) offers a more extensive treatment of the philosophy
of participatory design and other broader issues.
- Grudin, J. (1990). The case against user interface consistency.
Communications of the ACM, 32, 1, 1164-1173.
-
Harrison, B. and Baecker, R. (1992) Designing video annotation and analysis
systems, Graphics Interface, p157-166, Morgan-Kaufmann.
- Helander, M. (1988). Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction. Amsterdam:
Elsevier Science.
-
Helander, M. (ed, 1988) Handbook of human-computer interaction. Amsterdam:
Elsevier.
-
This is a voluminous collection of articles addressing various aspects of HCI.
It contains a total of 52 chapters, written by renowned experts in the respective
fields and covering everything from input/output devices to psychosocial and
work-related issues. The book is a very useful reference source but probably
not something that you would read from front to back.
- Hix, D., Hartson, H. (1993) Developing user interfaces. Ensuring usability
through product and process. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
-
Most textbooks in the field are focused either on design guidelines or on development
processes. The authors of this book attempt to cover both. The first part is
a good summary of design primitives on different levels, together with rules
for their use. The second part covers a usability engineering approach. A common
example is used throughout the second part, and practical notations for design
and evaluation are introduced. In my opinion, the book as a whole is useful
for teaching and for practical use.
-
Holtzblatt, K. and Jones, S. (1996) Contextual Inquiry: A Participatory Approcah.
In D. Schuler and A. Namioka (eds) Participatory Design: Principles and Practices,
p177-210. ** Describes contextual inquiry
-
Holtzblatt, K. and Beyer, H. (1993) Contextual Design: Principles and Practice.
In D. Wixon and J. Ramey (eds) Field Methods Casebook for Software Design,
p303-333.
- Howes, A. & Payne, S. J. (1990). Supporting exploratory learning. In
D. Diaper, et al. (Eds.) Human Computer Interaction - INTERACT '90. North-Holland:
Elsevier.
- Hutchins, E. L., Hollan, J. D., & Norman, D. A. (1986). Direct manipulation
interfaces. In S. W. Draper & D. A. Norman (Eds.) User Centered
System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
-
Hughes, J., King, V., Rodden, T. and Andersen, H. (1994) Moving out of the
control room: Ethnography in system design. In Proc CSCW'94, p429-439, ACM
Press.
-
Incontext, Inc. Getting Started with Contextual Techniques. http://www.incent.com/connection.indx/techniques.html
-
Jeffries, R., Miller, J., Wharton, C. and Uyeda, K. (1991) User interface evaluation
in the real world: A comparison of four techniques. In ACM Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems. p119-124, ACM Press.
-
Jirotka, M., Goguen, P. (eds, 1994) Requirements engineering --- Social and
technical issues. London: Academic Press.
-
Understanding user requirements is obviously a crucial prerequisite for building
the right system, and not merely building the system right. That is why requirements
engineering is important for HCI. This book contains articles on social as
well as technical aspects of requirements work which makes it a valuable addition
to the literature within software engineering, where social issues are sometimes
overlooked. The book plays an important part in the increasing integration
between technologists and social scientists.
-
John, B. and Vera, A. (1996) A GOMS analysis of a graphic machine-paced, highly-interactive
task. In R. Baecker, J. Grudin, W. Buxton and S. Greenberg (eds) Readings in
Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000, p626-633, Morgan-Kaufmann.
** A case study of GOMS in use.
-
Karat, C., Campbell, R. and Fiegel, T. (1992) Comparison of empirical testing
and walkthrough methods in user interface evaluation. In ACM Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems. 397-4044, ACM Press.
- Keiras, D. E., & Bovair, S. (1983). The role of a mental model
in learning to operate a device. ONR Technical Report No. 13.
-
Landauer, T. (1991) Lets Get Real: A Position Paper on the Role of Cognitive
Psychology in the Design of Humanly Useful and Usable Systems, In J. Carroll
(ed) Designing Interaction, Cambridge University Press.
- Landauer, T. (1995) The trouble with computers: Usefulness, usability
and productivity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
-
The first part of the book describes the productivity paradox of IT, i.e.,
the disturbing observation that the use of computers does not boost industrial
productivity to the levels one might have expected. The author's suggested
cure is user-centered systems development, aiming at achieving usefulness and
usability. The logic is obviously not conclusive but the book can still be
seen as a very well-written motivation for HCI and usability-oriented work.
The author's descriptions of development methods and approaches are very good,
particularly the pieces that address how to deal with different kinds of evaluation
data.
-
Lansdale, M., Ormerod, T. (1994) Understanding interfaces: A handbook of human-computer
dialogue. London: Academic Press.
-
As the title suggests, the authors work from the perspective of human-computer
interaction as dialogue. They address what human capabilities are needed and
used in the dialogue with the computer, what properties the computer must have,
different dialogue styles etc. The whole book is based in psychology and demonstrates
in a useful way what applied psychology in HCI can be about. Unfortunately,
the concluding part of the book addresses design and evaluation in a superficial
and not very convincing way. The most obvious problems are that the discussion
is limited to the user interface and not relevant for practical and professional
contexts.
-
Laurel, B. (ed, 1990) The art of human-computer interface design. Reading,
Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
-
A collection of articles by different authors that makes up one of the first
examples of a design perspective on HCI. The book has recommendations and reflections
on how to deal with the design process, along with visionary statements and
many examples of interaction design that was pretty innovative when the book
came out. Generally stimulating reading, and a valuable complement to the more
analytical and evaluation-oriented HCI literature.
- Laurel, B. (1990). The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley.
- Laurel, B. (1991). Computers as Theatre. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
-
Laurel, B. (1993) Computers as theatre. Wokingham, UK: Addison-Wesley.
-
The basic assumption of this book is that the notions of user interface and
computers-as-tools is unnecessarily limiting. Instead, we should think of computers
as arenas for human activity. Based on dramatic theory, the author develops
a number of design principles that mainly address communication, agents and
use experience. The book is highly relevant for readers who want to think about
virtual realities and other new directions in human-computer interaction. However,
it is obviously hard to apply the new ideas to contemporary (tool-oriented)
computing: the examples presented by the author mainly address computer games
and some information presentation.
-
Lewis, C., Rieman, J. (1993) Task-centered user interface design --- A practical
introduction. Shareware book, available by anonymous ftp from ftp.cs.colorado.edu.
-
A very useful and readable introductory text which covers many important topics
within the framework of practically applicable design techniques. The treatment
of theory-based evaluation, for instance, is very good and hard to find in
other books. There is also an interesting discussion of US copyright legislation
and its implications for user interface design.
- Lewis, C., & Rieman, J. (1993). Task-Centred User Interface
Design. Boulder: University of Colorado (ftp.cs.colorado.edu).
- Lindgaard, G. (1994) Usability testing and system evaluation. London:
Chapman & Hall.
-
In spite of the title, this book offers a fairly broad presentation of empirical
data collection and analysis in general. Most of the techniques are focused
on usability data, but there are also discussions of interviews and questionnaires
to use in early phases of systems development. It may be interesting for HCI
people with a technical background that the author describes formal (psychological)
experimental methods in an accessible and useful way. On the whole, the book
feels more like a reference than a textbook, even though it appears to have
been written with a pedagogical intention.
-
Lowgren, J. (1993) Human-computer interaction --- What every system developer
should know. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
-
This is a superficial introduction to HCI from a development process perspective.
A basic discussion of individual and organizational user traits is followed
by chapters on usability specification and evaluation, design, prototyping
and implementation. The book is written as a dialogue between a teacher and
a student, a style that some readers appreciate and others find irritating.
-
Kennedy, S. Using video in the BNR usability lab, SIGCHI Bulletin, 21(2), p92-95,
ACM Press.
-
Kieras, D. (1988) Towards a practical GOMS Model methodology for user interface
design. In M. Helander (ed.) Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, Elsevier,
North-Holland.
-
Mack, R. and Nielsen, J. (1994) Chapter 1: Executive summary. In J. Nielsen
and R. Mack (eds) Usability Inspection Methods, p1-23, Wiley and Sons. ** An
exectuive summary and discussion of inspection methods.
- Mackenzie, I.S. (1996) Movement time prediction in human computer interaction.
In R. Baecker, J. Grudin, W. Buxton and S. Greenberg (eds) Readings
in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000, p483-493, Morgan-Kaufmann.
- Malone, T. W. (1981). Towards a theory of intrinsically motivating instruction. Cognitive
Science, 5, 333-370.
- Marcus, A. (1992). Graphic design for electronic documents and user interfaces. New
York: ACM Press.
-
Marcus, A. (1992) Graphic design for electronic documents and user interfaces.
New York: ACM Press.
-
With the growth of graphical user interfaces, graphic design has become increasingly
important in HCI. This book covers basic principles and techniques for graphic
design in the context of user interfaces, including topics such as layout,
typography, symbols and color. There is also a comparative analysis of five
of the most popular graphical user interface environments.
-
Mayhew, D. (1992) Principles and guidelines in software user interface design.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
-
The author does a very good job of demonstrating the relations between psychological
HCI research and practical design guidelines. The research survey has an impressive
coverage and the presentation works well. The reader can choose to trust the
guidelines and apply them directly, or easily find the background and rationale
for specific design rules. In that sense, the book is similar to Gardiner and
Christie (1987) but it is much more current in its coverage of modern interaction
techniques such as direct manipulation. The contents are organized around different
interaction techniques and facilitates informed design choices based on an
understanding of the users and their work. To me, the closing chapter on development
methodology feels regrettably superficial and out of place, but I guess it
may provide some context for the design guidelines that form the main part
of the book.
- McGrath, J. (1996) Methodology matters: Doing research in the behavioural
and social sciences. In R. Baecker, J. Grudin, W. Buxton and S. Greenberg
(eds) Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000, p152-169,
Morgan-Kaufmann. ** A general discussion and comparison of fundamental concepts
in evaluation methods.
-
Molich, R. and Nielsen, J. (1990) Improving a human-computer dialogue, Communications
of the ACM 33(3), March, p338-348, ACM Press. ** This article lists the heuristics
and presents a working example, solutions, and alternatives.
-
Monk, A., Wright, P., Haber, J., Davenport, L. (1993) Improving your human-computer
interface: A practical technique. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
-
This short and concise book describes a usability evaluation method called
Cooperative Evaluation: basically an empirical test with representative users
doing representative tasks. The data collected concern unexpected user behavior,
mistakes and comments. The method is aimed at identifying major usability problems
in prototypes in a cost-efficient way. The book combines rationale for the
method with useful how-to information in a very good way, and also covers experimental
validations of the method. All in all, I think the book should be very useful
for professionals as well as for educational use.
-
Moran, T., Carroll, J. (eds, 1996) Design rationale: Concepts, techniques and
use. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
- The notion of structuring and capturing design processes is attractive
for many reasons, and quite a few notations and methods have been proposed.
Unfortunately, it turns out that they may be hard to apply in practice, for
technical as well as organizational reasons. This book provides a good overview
of the most prominent approaches in the field of design rationale, how they
are used and how they work individually and organizationally. About half
of the chapters are written for the book and the rest are reprints of "classic" articles.
- Brad A. Myers. User Interface Software Tools, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human
Interaction. vol. 2, no. 1, March, 1995. pp. 64-103. ftp://reports.adm.cs.cmu.edu/usr/anon/1994/CMU-CS-94-182.ps
** Overview and survey of tools, reprinted in lots of books.
- Brad A. Myers. Challenges of HCI Design and Implementation, ACM Interactions. vol.
1, no. 1. January, 1994. pp. 73-83. ftp://reports.adm.cs.cmu.edu/usr/anon/1993/CMU-CS-93-183.ps
** Why are user interfaces hard to design and implement?
- Brad A. Myers. A Quick History of Human Computer Interaction. To
appear: ACM interactors. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~amulet/papers/uihistory.tr.html
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~amulet/papers/uihistory.ps
-
Brad A. Myers, Rich McDaniel, Rob Miller, Alan Ferrency, Patrick Doane, Andrew
Faulring, Ellen Borison, Andy Mickish, and Alex Klimovitski The Amulet Environment:
New Models for Effective User Interface Software Development, To appear: IEEE
Transactions on Software Engineering. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~amulet/papers/amuletca.ps
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~amulet/papers/amuletca.abs.html
- Brad A. Myers. Creating User Interfaces Using Programming-by-Example,
Visual Programming, and Constraints, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages
and Systems. vol. 12, no. 2, April, 1990. pp. 143-177.
-
Muller, M.J. (1991) Pictive: An exploration in participatory design. In Proceedings
of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, p225-231, ACM
Press.
-
Mullet, K., Sano, D. (1995) Designing visual interfaces: Communication oriented
techniques. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
-
This is an excellent and very useful presentation of graphic design aspects
of the user interface. The authors are firmly based in a view of visual design
as effective communication, which means that they can easily relate the concepts
and techniques they discuss to a common purpose. The book is more substantial,
and possibly also more difficult, that Marcus (1992), but also much more rewarding.
-
Nardi, B. (ed, 1996) Context and consciousness: Activity theory and human-computer
interaction. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
-
The search for alternatives to the traditional information processing paradigm
is becoming more and more apparent within the behavioral science parts of HCI.
One such alternative is activity theory, a developmental framework that has
been explored and refined for a long time in the former Soviet Union. This
book provides a good introduction to activity theory, presents a number of
case studies to illustrate how the theory may be used to study human-computer
interaction in practice, and finally outlines a number of promising directions.
The book as a whole is readable and quite accessible, but not superficial.
Particularly interesting to me is the focus on real use situations that activity
theory implies.
- Neal, L. (1989) The use of video in empirical research. SIGCHI Bulletin,
21(2), p100-101, ACM Press.
-
Newman, W., Lamming, M. (1995) Interactive system design. Harlow, England:
Addison-Wesley.
-
Thanks to the choice of contemporary examples, this textbook for academic HCI
courses has an up-to-date feel to it. It applies solid psychological theory
to the context of developing interactive systems in a very good way. The presentation
is coherent and there are several strong points, for instance the discussion
of use-oriented requirement formulation, verification and validation in the
context of specification-driven processes. Moreover, I found the chapters on
designing conceptual models very clear and useful. The book covers many of
the established methods and notations in usability-oriented systems development
but perhaps not always to the level of detail needed for standalone use.
-
Nielsen, J. (1993) Usability engineering. San Diego: Academic Press.
-
The author of this book has become known for his work on discount usability
techniques. Here, he describes usability evaluation methods and some design
trends with a view towards professional software production. The opening chapter,
where usability work is motivated in a most convincing way, and the rich bibliography
are among the most valuable parts of the book.
- Nielsen, J., Mack, R. (eds, 1994) Usability inspection methods. New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
-
Inspection methods refer to techniques whereby the usability of a system can
be assessed without employing the future users. The best known inspection method
is probably heuristic evaluation, but as this book shows, there is a wide variety
of alternatives: reviews, psychological models, and so on. In addition to introducing
different methods, the bok offers comparative discussions of their merits and
shortcomings and relations to empirical (user-based) methods.
-
Nielsen, J. (1993) Extract-Chapter 6.4: Ethical aspects of tests with human
subjects. In Usability Engineering, p181-185, Academic Press.
-
Nielsen, J. (1993) Extract-Chapter 6: Usability testing. In Usability Engineering,
p165-205, Academic Press.
-
Nielsen, J. (1993) Extract-Chapter 5: Usability heuristics. In Usability Engineering,
p115-163, Academic Press. ** Describes the heuristics in detail plus how and
why it can be used to evaluate interfaces.
-
Nielsen, J. (1994) Enhancing the explanatory power of usability heuristics.
In Proceedings of the CHI'94 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
p152-158. ** This article takes usability guidelines developed by different
sources and sees which ones conribute most the the explanation of actual usability
problems drawn from a database.
-
Nielsen, J. (1994) Chapter 2: Heuristic evaluation. In J. Nielsen and R. Mack
(eds) Usability Inspection Methods, p25-62, Wiley and Sons. ** A more in depth
discussion of how heuristic evaluation works and its reliability
-
Nielsen, J. (1993) Extract-Chapter 4.8: Prototyping. In Usability Engineering,
p93-101, Academic Press. ** Describes different styles of prototypes and how
they can be used within scenarios.
- Nielsen, J., & Mack, R. L. (1994). Usability Inspection Methods. New
York: John Wiley & Sons.
- Norman, D. A. (1981). The trouble With Unix: the user interface
is horrid. Datamation, November, pp 139-150.
- Norman, D. A. (1988). The Psychology of Everyday Things. NY:
Basic Books.
- Norman, D. A. (1993). Things that Make Us Smart. Reading,
Massachussetts: Addison-Wesley.
- Norman, D. A., & Draper, S. W. (1986). User-Centered System
Design. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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Norman, D. (1988) The psychology of everyday things. New York: Basic Books.
-
This is a charming book that is extremely popular among HCI teachers and students
even though it does not address computers at all. Norman pulls his examples
from our everyday use of technical artifacts, using phones and light switches
to illustrate psychological theories of action, errors and memory. After reading
the book, you typically realize that you have learnt a lot about design and
users without noticing.
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Norman, D. (1992) Turn signals are the facial expressions of automobiles. Reading,
Mass: Addison-Wesley.
-
In the same spirit as The psychology of everyday things, Norman continues his
discussion of everyday artifacts and problems in their use. Some of the chapters
are more like standalone essays, for instance an interesting piece on the similarities
between writing and design.
-
Norman, D. (1993) Things that make us smart. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
-
This is a very suitable followup on the two earlier books, which were mainly
critiques of inadequate design of everyday things, in that it addresses more
general issues in a more profound way. Different modes of thinking, the importance
of representations, the possible neutrality of technology and possible future
scenarios are some of the topics covered. Even though the contents are more
demanding than in the previous books, the writing style is still very accessible
and enjoyable.
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Norman, D., Draper, S. (eds, 1986) User centered system design. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
-
In this collection, many established HCI researchers contribute their views.
Even though it is starting to feel old, there is still a lot to be learnt.
The scope of the book is considerable, with chapters covering users and their
understandings of the interaction, information flow, the role of HCI in systems
development and much more.
-
Norman, Donald A., _The Design of Everyday Things_, New York: Doubleday, 1990,
ISBN 0-385-26774-6.
- Norman, D. A. (1991). Cognitive Artifacts. In J. M. Carroll (Ed.), Designing
interaction: Psychology at the human-computer interface (pp. 17-38). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
- Donald Norman and Stephen Draper, eds., User Centered System Design, Erlbaum,
1986. Chapter 3: Cognitive Engineering (Norman) Chapter 5: Direct Manipulation
Interfaces (Hutchins, Hollan, and Norman) Chapter 12, The structure of users'
activities (Cypher) Chapter 20: Designing for error (Lewis and Norman).
-
*Olson, J. and Olson, G. (1996) The growth of cognitive modelling in human-computer
interaction since GOMS. In R. Baecker, J. Grudin, W. Buxton and S. Greenberg
(eds) Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000, p603-625,
Morgan-Kaufmann.
-
Olsen, D. (1992) User interface management systems: Models and algorithms.
San Mateo: Morgan Kaufmann.
-
This is the first textbook solely devoted to support systems for user interface
development, a field known as user interface management systems (UIMS). The
author covers the classical techniques and the development of the field towards
more modern ideas, such as model-based UIMS, in a very good way.
-
Olson, J. and Moran, T. (1996) Mapping the method muddle: Guidance in using
methods for user interface design. In M. Rudisill, C. Lewis, P. Polson and
T. McKay (eds) Human-Computer Interface Design: Success Stories, Emerging Methods,
and Real-World Context, p269-300, Morgan-Kaufmann. ** The authors associate
a variety of methodological approaches to specific interface design activities.
- O'Malley, C., Draper, S. and Riley, M. (1984) Constructive interaction:
A method for studying user-computer-user interaction. >From Proceedings
of Interact '84, p1-5.
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Preece, J., Keller, L. (eds, 1990) Human-computer interaction: Selected readings.
Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
-
A collection of scientific HCI articles that has been used in HCI courses at
the Open University. The selection is generally good and covers individual
psychology-based HCI very well. However, organizational aspects of HCI are
generally lacking and some of the articles could have been replaced with more
recent material.
-
Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H., Benyon, D., Holland, S., Carey, T. (1994)
Human-computer interaction. Wokingham: Addison-Wesley.
-
This is probably the most ambitious and exhaustive HCI textbook available today.
It contains more or less everything considered to belong to HCI, presented
in a pedagogical format with many exercises, questions and discussion topics.
I particularly like the decision by the authors to integrate computer-supported
cooperative work (CSCW), multimedia and similar techniques with general HCI
contexts throughout the book rather than presenting them in separate chapters.
The short interviews with celebrities in the field of HCI is an amusing detail
that adds a more personal feeling to the material. A downside is that the ambition
to cover everything has made the authors mention a few topics without discussing
them to any significant depth.
- Preece, J. et. al., (1994) "Excerpts-Box 33.2: Checklist for doing a cognitive
walkthrough." in Human Computer Interaction, p679-684, Addison-Wesley.
** Includes a form containing cognitive walkthrough instructions.
- ** Preece, J. et. al., (1994) "Excerpts-Chapter 30.4: Users opinions:
Interviews and questionairres." in Human Computer Interaction, p628-638,
Addison-Wesley.
- Preece, J. et. al., (1994) "Excerpts-Chapter 34: Comparing methods." in
Human Computer Interaction, p691-707, Addison-Wesley. ** Provides an overview
of previous comparitive studies of evaluation methods.
- Preece, J. et. al., (1994) "Excerpts-Chapter 20:Task analysis." in
Human Computer Interaction, p409-413, 417-424, Addison-Wesley. ** Includes
a working example of a GOMS analysis.
-
Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers, Helen Sharp, David Benyon, Simon Holland, and
Tom Carey, Human-Computer Interaction, Addison-Wesley 1994.
- Preece, J. et. al., (1994) "Excerpts-Chapter 33.4: Modelling: The keystroke
level model." in Human Computer Interaction, p685-687, Addison-Wesley.
** Includes a working example of a GOMS analysis.
-
Randall, D. (1996) Ethnography and Systems Development: Bounding the Intersection.
Tutorial notes presented at CSCW'96. Excerpts: Sections 3, 4,5,7
-
Redmond-Pyle, D., Moore, A. (1995) Graphical user interface design and evaluation:
A practical process. London: Prentice Hall.
-
The author presents a development process, Guide, intended for professional
development of graphical user interfaces. Guide is based on established techniques
for user and task analysis, usability specification, design, prototyping and
evaluation. The nice thing about it is that the techniques are carefully integrated
into a coherent usability engineering method, well tested and presented skillfully.
The Guide method on the whole appears credible and accessible to me. Some additional
advantages of the book are that it emphasizes the importance of object-centered
design and of putting usability work into the bigger picture of systems development.
-
Rettig, M. (1994) Prototyping for tiny fingers. Communications of the ACM,
37(4), ACM Press.
-
Rieman, J. and Lewis, C. Getting to Know Users and their Tasks. In R. Baecker,
J. Grudin, W. Buxton and S. Greenberg (eds) Readings in Human Computer Interaction:
Towards the Year 2000, p122-127, Morgan-Kaufmann. ** Describes task-centered
system design and how tasks are used to define walkthroughs.
-
Rudd, J., Stern, K. and Isensee, S. (1996) Low vs. high fidelity prototyping
debate. Interactions 3(1), p76-85, ACM Press.
-
Schuler, D., Namioka, A. (eds, 1993) Participatory design: Principles and practices.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
-
This is a survey of philosophies, techniques and case studies that illustrate
and, to some extent, explain the growing interest in participatory design within
HCI. The contributors are basically uncritical to the approach, except for
the issue of how generally applicable participatory design can be said to be.
Several chapters discuss the Scandinavian origins of the approach and the differences
compared to the US, for instance in terms of different views on working life
and co-determination.
-
Shneiderman, B. (1992) Designing the user interface. Second edition. Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley.
-
This book is fairly ambitious in its approach and covers large parts of the
HCI area. The main emphasis, however, is on interaction principles and techniques,
and on a development perspective on user interfaces. The second edition features
computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and information retrieval, and a
few good closing remarks on the social and individual implications of information
technology.
-
Smith, S., Mosier, J. (1986) Guidelines for designing user interface software.
Report ESD-TR-86-278, Mitre Corp., Bedford, Mass.
-
Guidelines for user interface design are probably not the first choice for
leisure reading, but it can nevertheless be important to know what has been
done. Smith and Mosier is the standard reference, compiling knowledge from
hundreds of sources into 944 design rules. It is starting to suffer from its
age, however: much of the material is old and modern interaction techniques
such as direct manipulation are only addressed briefly.
-
Suchman, L. and Trigg, R. (1996) Understanding practice: Video as a medium
for reflection and design. In R. Baecker, J. Grudin, W. Buxton and S. Greenberg
(eds) Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000, p233-240,
Morgan-Kaufmann. ** Describes how video records can be used for ethnographic
and interaction analysis.
- Suchman, L. and Trigg, R. (1993). Artificial intelligence as craftwork.
In Chaiklin, S. and Lave, J.(Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspectives on
activity and context. Learning in doing: Social, cognitive, and computational
perspectives, (pp. 144-178). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
- Suchman, L. A. (1987). Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine
communication. New York: Cambridge University Press.
-
Thimbleby, H. (1990) User interface design. New York: ACM Press.
-
This is a strange mixture of design issues, formal methods, problems in computer
science, interaction models and mathematics, well stirred and served with a
side order of HCI. The author moves between topics that you would expect to
be very far apart and shows that they are all in some way related to the interaction
between human and computer.
-
Thomas, P. (ed, 1995) The social and interaction dimensions of human-computer
interfaces. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
There is a clear trend within HCI from classical, psychological perspectives,
focusing on the interaction between one user and one computer, towards larger
social and organizational contexts. This collection illustrates the trend quite
well. Most of the contributions are on sociology and its possible roles within
HCI: some present sociologically oriented design methods (typically based on
ethnography), others are more argumentative pieces that discuss the social
dimensions of HCI on the abstract level. The scope of the collection is wide,
and it may seem unstructured at times, but the odds are that most readers find
something of interest.
-
Tognazzini, B. (1992) Tog on interface. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
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This book was written by one of the leading architects behind Apple's user
interface design, that was popularized with the Macintosh. Tognazzini has answered
reader questions for several years in Apple Direct, a magazine for developers
on Apple platforms. This book is a collection of the most interesting questions
and answers, together with some new material. It is a lot of fun to read, and
you also learn quite a bit about user interface design.
-
Tognazzini, B. (1996) Tog on software design. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
-
This one is mostly about the Sun Starfire project (an envisionment of computer
use in the year 2004), how it was developed and what we can learn from it.
It also discusses users and usability, the role of the designer in systems
development, and more. I find the parts about future computing very good: inspiring,
credible and full of good values that other designers and aspiring designers
can learn a lot from. It would perhaps have been better if the book had been
a bit more focused, since I find some of the parts on users and use contexts
to be rather sweeping and sometimes oversimplified. The style of the book is
very informal and entertaining, on occasion too informal: the message disappears
behind the author's presence.
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Treu, S. (1994) User interface design --- A structured approach. New York:
Plenum.
-
This is certainly a structured approach. The author dsecribes design as a decision
function with a number of variables (knowledge of users, classes of applications,
etc) that generates design solutions. Each of the parts of the function are
described in detail, with lots of models, tables and causal relations. Design
of adaptive systems and other interaction paradigms is covered fairly exhaustively.
However, the approach is not related at all to systems development or software
engineering. Even though the structured approach may be a good way to cover
and tie together large quantities of relevant knowledge, it is not much fun
to read.
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Treu, S. (1994) User interface evaluation --- A structured approach. New York:
Plenum.
-
This is the companion to the above book, and it is just as structured. Evaluation
is seen as a scientific or engineering activity, aimed at assessing the efficiency
of the interaction and the fit between human and computer. Numerous models
and tables are presented in order to cover as much relevant knowledge as possible.
The main drawbacks to me are that the author only addresses evaluation of implemented
systems, and that the relations to systems development are missing here as
well.
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Waern, Y. (1989) Cognitive aspects of computer supported tasks. Chichester:
John Wiley.
-
The book is based on cognitive psychology and the first part can be read as
a primer on human cognitive and perceptive abilities. This basis is then used
to discuss HCI from an outside perspective, which means that the book has a
certain persistent value. Even though text editors (the white rats of HCI research!)
are not very exciting in terms of interaction techniques, they give rise to
pedagogically useful discussions if the intention is to illustrate the underlying
theory.
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Wagner, E. (1994) System interface design --- A broader perspective. Lund:
Studentlitteratur.
- This is a very ambitious book that covers a bit of everything from anthropometry
and the physical function of the eye all the way up to organizational impact.
The best part in my opinion is the thorough treatment of display design.
Unfortunately, the title is misleading (it should rather be "Process control system interface
design") and the book is full of typos and sloppy layout which can become
distractive at times.
-
Wharton, C., Rieman, J., Lewis, C. and Polson, P. (1994) Chapter 5: The cognitive
walkthrough method: A practitioner's guide. In J. Nielsen and R. Mack (eds)
Usability Inspection Methods, p105-140, Wiley and Sons. ** Describe the steps
in the cognitive walkthough process.
-
Wiklund, M. (ed, 1994) Usability in practice. New York: AP Professional.
-
A very valuable collection: eighteen case studies of usability work in professional
practice. The settings are primarily consumer product development, software
development and service delivery. All the studies are, understandably but regrettably
from a knowledge transfer perspective, success stories. Some lack descriptions
of preconditions, analyses of the results and the general grasp of qualitative
study methodology. In spite of these shortcomings, the book should be required
reading for anybody interested in professional HCI practice today.
-
Winograd, T. (ed, 1996) Bringing design to software. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
-
In recent years (1995-6), there has been a markedly growing interest in design
within the HCI community. This entails looking into the design professions
such as graphic and media design as well as the notion of usability-oriented
systems development as a design discipline. This book contains contributions
from several of the pioneers within the design school of thought. As in all
collections, the quality and contents are variable but some of the chapters
strike me as very valuable. I personally appreciate the short profiles that
present influential designs (The Xerox Star, KidPix, the spreadsheet, etc);
paradigmatic exemplars ought to be just as important for us as they are in
other design disciplines.
-
Terry Winograd, with John Bennett, Laura De Young, and Bradley Hartfield (eds.),
Bringing Design to Software, Addison-Wesley, 1996.
- Winograd, T. (1995). Hiedegger and the design of computer systems. In
Feenberg, A. and Hannay, A. (Eds.) Technology and the politics of knowledge,
(pp. 108-127). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
- Winograd, T., & Flores, F. (1986). Understanding Computers and Cognition:
A New Foundation for Design. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
- Wixon, D., Ramey, J. (eds, 1996) Field methods casebook for software design.
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
-
The field of HCI has increasingly focused on the developers' understanding
the whole situation where the system will be used. Such understanding requires
field study. This book is about field study methods, and particulary qualitative
methods using observation and semi-structured interviews. The book is a collection
of chapters based on a CHI '95 workshop, where practitioners from different
fields describe their experiences from field studies in usability-oriented
systems development. Most of the chapters address contextual inquiry or some
flavor of ethnographically inspired interviews. There is a lot of useful hands-on
information and methodological inspiration. Some of the chapters are, of course,
less valuable than others, but on the whole I think the book would be of interest
for those who want to develop their field study skills.
-
Zetie, C. (1995) Practical user interface design: Making GUIs work. London:
McGraw-Hill.
- Already in the preface, the author explains that the book is intended
for professional system developers without previous HCI knowledge but with
an urge to build "extraordinary" systems.
The contents are well suited for such an audience and very well presented,
with many examples and practical hints. The book starts with a brief overview
of psychological foundations, and then moves into metaphors and conceptual
models, taskflow, dialog design, detailed user interface design and error
and help messages. It is limited to business-oriented standard GUI, which
means lots of forms and dialog boxes and very little true direct manipulation.
This is not necessarily bad, given the intended audience. However, what I
do think is bad is the absence of usability testing. A good idea might be
to read Dumas and Redish (1993) as a complement.