Usability Testing and Research (Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication)

Book Description

Built on a solid foundation of current research in the field, Usability Testing and Research provides a comprehensive, up-to-date perspective in this increasingly important area of technical communication. Based on the most current research in the field, this book reflects the most recent developments and studies on this topic available. Sidebars throughout the book catch the attention of the readers and highlight key concepts in the text. A chapter on web testing provides coverage of what is now the hottest area in usability testing. End of chapter discussions and exercises reinforce learning. Frequent examples of planning, conducting, and reporting usability tests present current samples of projects. An appendix on teamwork gives pertinent advice in an area neglected by other texts: building and coordinating cross-functional teams for usability testing. For those interested in usability testing and research.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent introduction to usability testing.......2003-06-23

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books have a lot to offer a current student of user-centred design and usability testing, some students find them too out-of-date to be taken seriously.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

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

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

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

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

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

A solid textbook on usability testing that includes web.......2003-05-30

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

STC Usability SIG review.......2003-01-30

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Complete guide to usability research.......2002-10-16

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ken Kellogg
Manager - Usability Research

First new book on the topic in a while........2002-09-27

It's been a while since there's been a new book published on usability testing. It isn't a topic that gets dated, so the books that have been out there a while are still great ones. But it's good to have a new one too. This one by Carol Barnum is a thorough, practical, highly usable book on Usability Testing. Carol starts the book with chapters on user centered design. These chapters are pretty good, but the real value, I think is the detailed chapters on how to plan, carry out, analyze and report on usability tests that are really excellent.

Besides a lot of detail on usability testing protocol (well written and highly readable) there are lots of examples of facilitator scripts, recruiting and screener forms, Think Aloud instructions, etc.

Book Description

Become a successful information technology consultant!

This is the only book on the market that will teach you the crucial "soft skills" of communication, facilitation, and presentation, plus a methodology for applying IT analysis skills to meet your client's business needs. Using an organized, common sense approach based on his 15 years experience as an IT consultant, Rick Freedman presents this landmark method for partnering with clients, collecting and analyzing data, creating recommendations, and delivering business benefits to clients.

You'll learn how to:

Develop rewarding and mutually beneficial client relationships

Help clients visualize the end product of IT systems consulting projects

Negotiate projects that have clear goals, specifications, budgets, and schedules

Market proposals to executives, managers, and users

Plus, the accompanying CD-ROM provides you with customizable job aids for use in your own work.

Never again will you be simply a "technician-for-hire." Whether you're a newcomer to consulting or a seasoned professional, The IT Consultant provides you with a blueprint for developing your advisory skills, providing quality services, and building successful client relationships.

Customer Reviews:

its like getting $2000 training in the form of a book........2006-09-25

This book is a bit dry in places, BUT the content more than makes up for it.
I recommend this to any consultant. It will improve your level of thinking about what you do a whole higher level. Yes, it does have many effective "tips".

Discouraging.......2006-01-24

I was disappointed in the contents of the book. Although some of the information was helpful, each chapter ended with how difficult it was to be an independent IT Consultant. Also, the book is written from a UK perspective and does not focus on many aspects that are specific to the US, including new legislation (SOX) or sub-contracting.

Over-rated.......2002-10-23

This is a good book - but by no means a classic. It is perfect for its target market - geeks who don't know about business and business value and just want to read a summary of information available from more authoritive sources.

Better books include "Managing the Professional Service Firm" or "Secrets of Consulting" by Weinberg.

A great Read.......2001-11-13

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book from cover to cover. It's a sure must for anyone wanting to understand and learn about being an IT consultant. I wish I had this book around when I was a consultant. It describes exactly what an IT consultant is, the roles & responsibilities and attributes needed for this exciting career. Face it, most jobs today are very much IT focused, and we're all into IT in one way or the other. This gets my thumbs-up!

Insightful!.......2001-08-04

Author Rick Freedman spent many years as a consultant and his textbook and accompanying CD offer a lot of orderly advice aimed at both the novice consultant and the veteran consultant who wants to improve. Freedman covers such topics as the business of advice, the IT (information technology) consulting framework and developing superior consulting skills. Freedman's main argument is that consultants should train so that they can be of more help to their clients. Successful consultants, he maintains, rely more on their people skills than on their technical gifts. Freedman also gives aspiring consultants advice on how to remain competitive in securing and keeping clients. He instructs consultants to read a steady stream of periodicals and books to keep up with the vast daily changes in technology. We [...] suggest that you can use his book and CD set to find out everything you ever wanted to know about consulting - including how hard it is - but never knew who to ask.

Average customer rating:

Required reading if you want to stand out among your peers
Another winner from Ms. Czegel - this focuses on people
Concise Reference for Support Staff

Help Desk Practitioner's Handbook
Barbara Czegel
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0471319929

Book Description

Your complete guide to surviving and thriving as a Help Desk practitioner
Help Desk Practitioner's Handbook
The only book to address the unique concerns of the huge and growing number of Help Desk analysts, this is your complete guide to becoming a more effective communicator and problem-solver and deriving greater satisfaction from your job. Barbara Czegel, North America's most well-known expert on Help Desk support services and training, uses dozens of fascinating scenarios and real-world examples to illustrate the right (and wrong) ways to handle virtually every situation you can encounter. She arms you with an arsenal of proven tools of the trade, including:
* Eleven effective listening habits that improve your ability to solve problems
* Techniques for increasing the speed and accuracy of problem resolution
* Early warning systems and layered strategies for problem control
* Tools for reducing calls and eliminating problems before they occur
* A simple, step-by-step process for doing cost justifications
* Methods for turning Help Desk interactions into marketing opportunities
Visit our Web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/

Customer Reviews:

Required reading if you want to stand out among your peers.......2003-03-05

This book is packed with useful information that will make you a more well-rounded support person. Help desk and technical support in general is so much more than just technical know-how. The non-technical aspects are just as important and this book will help you in those areas. Has information on standard methodologies of technical support, full of tips. Has gotten me higher job ratings and a nice raise in the past year. You need this to compete in today's tough job environment. I think this should be required reading by all help desk/technical support staff. Great book.

Another winner from Ms. Czegel - this focuses on people.......2001-04-11

This is the second book I have read by Ms. Czegel (the first was Running an Effective Help Desk). Where the first book leads you through the help desk planning, implementation and operations process, this one focuses on the people issues. My experience has shown that the best help desk technologies you can buy, and problem management processes you can develop and implement are worthless if you don't take care of the people part of the equation.

Ms. Czegel jumps right in with roles. She systematically goes through the various roles a help desk analyst must assume. The ability to switch from one character or personality type to another that is the hallmark of a truly great analyst gives you some keen insights into why there is an epidemic of burnout and high turnover among support professionals. Aside from this insight, it also shows you what to look for in candidates and gives you a good foundation for coaching and training. It also gives you some ammunition for getting their pay and bonus structure aligned to the high stress the job casues.

As in her other book Ms. Czegel never loses sight of the business side and part two of this book gives an intelligent description of help desk stakeholders and their unique needs based on their level in the organization and how their functions intersect with the help desk mission and objectives. The next two sections cover issue management processes and procedures and help desk technology. Some of the material is close to what is in her other book, but is not identical.

The remainder of the book duplicates a lot of the material in Running an Effective Help Desk, but is excellent if you only buy one of Ms. Czegel's books. A reason to buy both, however, is the different focus of each and some expansion of topics in each book.

Overall, I like this book a lot and gained much from it. I came away with an appreciation for and empathy with those thick-skinned folks who staff help desks. I also came away with some good ideas about how to motivate and train help desk analysts and design processes that make their life easier. I highly recommend this book and give it 5 stars.

Concise Reference for Support Staff.......2000-01-21

I found this to be a concise reference manual that will benefit any Help Desk Analyst.

It provides information on Help Desk operation aimed specifically at the analysts who staff your Help Desk.

Its full of tips, examples, and case studies, while teaching skills in effective listening and problem solving that every analysts needs.

Book Description

A crash course in human factors theory and practice for technical communicators

If you're a technical writer, technical editor, documentation manager, user-interface designer, usability tester, or any other type of technical communication professional, you've probably found yourself becoming more and more involved in the development, design, and testing of technical communication products. In order to handle your expanded responsibilities effectively you need a solid grounding in human factors, the art and science of designing for people. And now this book gives it to youâfast.

First, expert Marlana Coe takes you on a fascinating tour of the burgeoning science of human factors. In terms that you can understand, she explains all about the psychology and physiology of how users access, learn, and remember information; the impact of colors, shapes, and patterns; learning styles; approaches and obstacles to problem solving; action structures; and more. And, with the help of real-life examples of various technical communication products, she vividly demonstrates what works, what doesn't, and why.

Then, she shows you how to apply what you've learned to create the best technical communication products possible. You'll find out how to:

Analyze users' needs and learning styles
Get and interpret user feedback and create partnerships with users
Select the most effective layouts, colors, fonts, and graphics
Build better navigational infrastructures
Develop content that gives users everything they need to quickly identify and resolve problems
Test and improve your product's usability

Customer Reviews:

we need more people reading stuff like this.......2003-10-08

I cannot tell you how many times, as a techwriter, and content developer, if you work on other people's stuff, edit the engineer's stuff...they think you are "Dumbing-it-down" or castrating it.

They make like they are working on the Next NOBEL PRIZE, and you dare touch their stuff!! How-dare-you! How could a lowly writer understand the full glory of their verbiage?
And the more obscure, passive and inpenetrable it is, the more it makes them look "more better smarter-est", the ole highschool "Baffle them with BS" ploy. If it's in pure ASCII text, even better! See, they are catering to the purest of Intelligencia...

So basically, the writer gets treated like a transcriptionist, or formatter, and god help you if you try to do your job.
And then the schmucks have the nerve to keep asking you back to help them, but keep undermining you.

Then they wonder why nobody likes to use their application. Hmmmmm! I wonder!

Fantastic book!.......2003-01-21

This book is extremely well done, and it can be applied to much more than writing. I think that the bulk of it applies to almost any kind of design, i.e getting to know the users, their needs, abilities, experience, etc. and then involving them in the design, getting feedback, establishing a partnership, etc. It's just the kind of up from the trenches stuff that managers would be wise to listen to but very rarely do. You can definitely sense the frustration the author has in technical writers being the band-aid applied to poor product design and cost-cutting, and she offers concrete alternatives when you have limitations.

I also love the recursiveness of it, in that she is writing the same thing she is also describing, so talk about reading between the lines! I could read it over and over, each time appreciating more and more how she followed her own advice.

This book is what I always look for in a book, because it starts from the beginning and ends at the end, with a clear trail of how it got there. The supporting introduction, glossary, index, notes and references are very well done.

This book is not a "how-to".......2002-04-24

Well, I just got this book. From the Preface: "This book is not a "how-to". This book is one level higher and deals with the cognitive psychological theory of designing and developing technical communication...". Thats not what I need. I looked for "how to' not for another academic book. Well this book is going to the return center.

A must read for anyone that communicates online or on paper.......2000-09-18

If you do any kind of writing for your job buy this book and read it cover to cover. With that said my review follows:

There are so many positives in this book that I will list the negatives first, there are few and very minor at that.

The cover has got to go. It does not represent the depth and wealth of the information inside. To be honest, it looked so poorly thought out and old, I felt the contents of the book must be too. Thankfully, I dropped my bias and was very pleasantly surprized.

The other negative may be my own personal preference, but I like the footnote detail at the bottom of the page, so when I see it I don't have to scoot to the end of the chapter to see what it is. This is how good the book was, I read all the footnotes and references too.

Marlana Coe has created a book that I hope not only do Technical writers from all over read, but Human Factors professionals too. As a fanatic-pursuer of documentation meeting its goal to communicate, this book says it all. The usability measurement on documentation is whether or not it allows the author to communicate to the reader and Marlana Coe shows you just how to do that. In fact, she shows you while doing that herself.

I bought this book because as a Human Factors professional, I find we do not practice what we preach. We review a product and come up with wonderful ideas to make it better and then proceed to hide that in a document that is not geared for the reader. Many technical reports, even the ones that only have a small group of customers, don't meet those customers needs. There are no pictures, tables and diagrams and worst of all no logical organization for the reader to create a structure around the information. The documents are geared for the writer to regurgitate data, not for the reader to absorb it. Granted this is not all, but too much of a majority in a group of people that should know better. Most human factors professional know, how to increase usability of everyone else's product but their own: the technical report they create on products they review. This book bridges that gap, for HF professionals especially. Yes, I'm including myself in this category (I did buy the book after all).

For all the rest of you, this gives you reasons for all the practices that good technical writers should use. From the amount of white space to use to the number of fonts and colors. There are also suggestions on organization and on construction of these documents. One section discussed content and the importance of context of usage. This is something, I never really thought of that much. (Oops).

Another thing the author has done was fashion a book on a technical subject and made it readable. This is something she also covers in her book. Her language is natural and she has not fallen into the trap of using technical words or ones that may escape the average readers vocabulary.

In a word: Fantastic!

Great insite into the Reader.......2000-04-04

Coe does a great job of introducing the reader to the writer. There are so many things that we as writers don't think about, or take for granted when we write. This book really opened my eyes not only as a writer but also as a reader to the importance of understanding how people read, understand, learn, and absorb information.

Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)

Average customer rating:

not for beginners or the faint of heart, but fundamental
A classic work on the application of social science to HCI
Read only the last chapter and the conclusion.
Important Beyond Its Ostensible Field
Fundamental reading

Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
Lucy A. Suchman
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521337399

Book Description

This lively and original book offers a provocative critique of the dominant assumptions regarding human action and communication which underlie recent research in machine intelligence. Lucy Suchman argues that the planning model of interaction favoured by the majority of AI researchers does not take sufficient account of the situatedness of most human social behaviour. The problems that can arise as a result are pertinently, and often amusingly, illustrated by the careful analysis of a recorded interaction between novice users and an intelligent machine, whose design has failed to accommodate essential resources of successful human communication.

"Plans and Situated Actions" presents a compelling case for the re-examination of current models of underlying interface design. Lucy Suchman's proposals for a fresh characterization of human-computer interaction which also incorporates recent insights from the social sciences provides a challenge that everyone interested in machine intelligence will need seriously to consider.

Customer Reviews:

not for beginners or the faint of heart, but fundamental.......2006-12-31

Suchman's book is a classic (and about to be updated!), but that doesn't mean there aren't any caveats. Suchman's analysis is deep, her writing thick (incredibly terse, dense prose that may require a good dictionary), and her perspective is still controversial.

This book doesn't tell you how to "do" very much - it's not a step-by-step method book. This is a mix of theory and method that will force the engaged reader to reflect on his/her own work.

This book stands as perhaps the best example of a socio-cognitive analysis of technology, and is therefore correctly treated as fundamental in HCI and related fields. For a researcher who is interested in the relationship between technology and people, or technology and the world, this is a must-read. AI and HCI stumble into each other frequently, but this is a book for both audiences.

As for the debate of plans vs. situated action, well, to some extent I find it irrelevant. Suchman never claims that plans don't exist or are unimportant. Even if your work is completely plan-oriented - say, AI planning (e.g. path planning), you should read this book - it will challenge some of your assumptions, and force you to grapple with problems that exist when technology interacts with the world.

That having been said, this is not an introductory reader on HCI, AI, or any other topic. Suchman's terse language frustrates even some very intelligent grad students and PhD's, and again, this book is deep. It's a book that has challenged me as I've read and re-read it over the years, and I treasure it.

A classic work on the application of social science to HCI.......2006-05-10

This book is not for everyone. Suchman makes connections between AI, HCI and the sociological areas of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA) - connections that have been very visible and influential in subsequent HCI and CSCW research. If you don't have any background in these sociological areas, it will take some work to read it.

That said, I think this book is reasonably accessible, and certainly more so than has been suggested by some reviewers. Suchman was writing to counter a prevalent mindset in the AI community of the time. Basically, Chapters 2 and 3 set up a technical and philosophical strawman (human action as the execution of plans), Chapters 4 and 5 provide an explanation of some necessary theoretical background, and the rest is an analysis of interaction in the context of these theories that serves to knock down the strawman. It's fairly hard to have a more clear and logical organization than that. There's no part of that organization that could be left out and still have the book make sense.

Furthermore, by comparison, the theoretical parts of this book should be easier for the uninitiated to read than are Garfinkel's writings on ethnomethodology (or most CA writings by almost anyone). They may or may not do justice to those ideas, but that's a separate question. And for someone with any background at all in these areas (though as suggested by other reviewers, this does not include a huge number of people), this book should be a very straightforward read.

The bottom line for me is that this book (like Paul Dourish's "Where the Action Is") is an interdisciplinary gem that has the potential to change how you think about how people approach technology. There aren't that many books for which that can be said.

Read only the last chapter and the conclusion........2003-02-05

If you do read it, read only the last chapter and the conclusion.

Summary:
Keep in mind that the title of the book is Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human Machine Communication. The majority of the book is the 'plans and situated actions' part.

The basic idea of the book is that humans don't really function using plans. Plans, as the author defines them, are something akin to diagrams for behavior, explicating specific activities. Instead, the author argues that humans behave based on 'situated actions'. Situated actions are, "the view that every course of action depends in essential ways upon its material and social circumstances. Rather than attempting to abstract action away from its circumstances and represent it as a rational plan, the approach is to study how people use their circumstances to achieve intelligent action." (p. 50).

In other words, people have a goal in mind. To achieve their goal, people may or may not set up a plan (the author discusses how this could be culturally relative, but I think this is a weak point in her argument because she doesn't really do a good job of distinguishing one type of plan from another), but what is important is that in trying to achieve their goal they are placed in situations that determine their actions. This could also be said: people behave in specific situations based upon the factors that affect the situation.

Let me give an example... Let's say your goal is to get to the dentist. You set up a 'plan' for getting to the dentist prior to leaving. Your plan would include a calculation of the time and the route and your mode of transportation. The situated action approach would say that you can only understand the individual's behavior in terms of their actions in specific situations. So you get in your car and on the way to the dentist's office you run into a detour due to construction. If you had to follow your plan, you couldn't make it to the dentist. But when you leave the road and find an alternate route, this behavior is only understood in terms of situated action. Does that explain it? Wow, and it only took me a few paragraphs.

The author discusses plans and situated actions in terms of conversations, cognitive science, ethnomethodology, and a whole bunch of other theoretical perspectives and technical jargon. In the end she finally gets to the human and machine communication. This is also where the book begins to get interesting. She studied how people interacted with copy machines that were trying to give people instructions. Her studies, undoubtedly helped the people at Xerox figure out ways to improve their copy machines and instructions for them. Like I said above, the last chapter and the conclusion are the most interesting parts of the book. Skip the rest and read them.

My Comments:
For someone so concerned with understanding how people communicate this book is horribly written and nearly unintelligible. The first six chapters are theory and examples of the theory that are completely unrelated to machines. The book finally gets to human and machine interaction after nearly one hundred pages of inchoate theory. And the human and machine interaction stuff isn't really all that interesting - especially since it predates the 1990s, is talking about interaction with copying machines, and has nothing to do with computers.

The author should have chosen a specific approach and then stuck to it. Perhaps she could have tripled the length of the book and gave clear and understandable explanations of the theories (though I am pretty much convinced after having read the book that this would be impossible because of the author's writing style) and used examples that applied only to human and machine interaction. Or she could have just jumped into her findings that dealt with human and machine interaction. The first approach could have been 'dumbed down' to make the book readable by the general public. The second approach could have served a more academic market.

The book reads something like a doctoral dissertation (it very well may be one, I don't know) in that she gives some information on each theory, but not really enough to give someone a good understanding of it - something like a literature review - and cites examples of research that are completely unrelated to the topic of the book to illustrate the theories . The she presents her methods, results, and conclusion.

I guess my problem is that I was expecting a book that would actually be enjoyable to read, interesting, and would focus on human and machine communication. If that is what you are looking for, look somewhere else. This book is nearly impossible to understand. I read the book for a graduate level course in Ethnomethodology and I didn't really understand it very well. By no means am I an expert in Ethnomethodology, but I'm pretty sure I know more about it than probably 95% of the world's population (keep in mind I don't know very much at all), so I'm pretty confident most people would find this book nearly impossible to decipher.

Important Beyond Its Ostensible Field.......2002-07-12

This is an outstanding book. The insight that showed the power of the idea of `situated action' goes far beyond the realm of interactive design or even human computer interaction in its entirety. It is a fundamental solution to the problem of facing complexity and contingency. Its implications are widespread. This book was published in the 1987 when during the last days of classical AI. This is one of the seminal books that showed the inadequacies of the classical formulation. Indeed it showed a new and much more way of achieving the goals that classical AI set for itself and failed. Despite its age the ides in this book are still fresh and important.

. Absolute certainty is impossible and the quest for it is costly and futile. Instead of trying to overcome the uncertainty that is in the world, the system designer should embrace it and use it as a tool to solve the problems that it creates.

This is a book that should be read by anyone who has set the task for themselves of developing any system that must function in an uncertain environment. In short this is a book that should be read by anyone who is developing a system that will have to function within the real world

Fundamental reading.......2000-06-28

This is THE book to start with if anybody is interested in studying interaction design. In a time everybody calls themselves an interaction designer, it's a highly recommended reading to learn there's more to interaction than simply large colourful buttons... Based on an ethnomethodological perspective, Suchman does a brilliant job in analysing users' interactions with an advanced Xerox machine, and putting forth an interesting critique of classical AI concepts. It's highly recommended for anybody interested in Human-Computer Communication and interaction design.

MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Core Requirements, Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, 70-294

Average customer rating:

Uhhh....
Redundancy at it's best.. If you have 70-291 and 70-298, you have just about the whole 70-293
GET IT TOGETHER AMAZON.
Excellent content
Ok, but needs a lot of work to be a real test prep guide.

MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Core Requirements, Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, 70-294
Dan Holme , Orin Thomas , Zacler. Craig , J.C. MacKin , Ian McLean , and Microsoft Corporation
Manufacturer: Microsoft Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0735619530

Product Description

MCSE S/P KIT WINDOWS SVR 2003 CORE REQUIREMENTS

Amazon.com

In the certification craze of 1999-2001, tens of thousands of people earned their Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) ratings. Those certifications are expiring now, just as Microsoft is coming out with Windows Server 2003 to replace the Windows 2000 family of operating systems. There may be a real opportunity for those who earn the Windows Server 2003 certification--and that's where MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Core Requirements comes in. This four-book set (which comes with quiz software and a 180-day laboratory version of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, plus a coupon for 15 percent off the cost of each of the four exams), combined with some hands-on practical work, should be all you need to earn the new MCSE rating or the Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA) certification.

Each of the four books (each with a separate author) covers the published requirements of a single exam. Coverage tends to be text-heavy--even procedures rely mostly on text and use few screen shots. This goes to reinforce the fact that these are serious books for people with a pretty good idea of what they're doing already. Chapters typically begin with conceptual coverage of their subjects (using diagrams to illustrate the relationships among network entities in many cases) and move on to illustrative procedures to try. Chapters then conclude with carefully considered discussion questions. The answers to the questions appear in an appendix, complete with explanations of why the correct answers are what they are. --David Wall

Topics covered: The published exam requirements for the MCSE/MCSA core exams: "Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Environment" (70-290), "Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure" (70-294), "Implementing, Managing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure" (70-291), and "Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure" (70-293).

Customer Reviews:

Uhhh...........2007-08-08

I'm still trying to get through the first book 2 years later. But what's the hurry? I can always start my training tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow...

Seriously, though, these books look a lot like the ones I used to study for my first MCSE, on NT4. Full of most of what you need to pass the exam, plus a lot of junk you don't. I think they're an attempt to trick/force you into learning enough to be more than a paper MCSE while soaking up enough info to pass the test.

The "knowledge" contained herein is no substitute for real world experience, but is daunting to tackle even for a seasoned professional. If you really know computers, and just want test info, I'd recommend something like the Transcender exams instead.

Redundancy at it's best.. If you have 70-291 and 70-298, you have just about the whole 70-293.......2007-04-28

I have just gone through the 70-291 and 70-298 books, and went through this one ..... and was gravely dissapointed.. I felt like I was reading the same material as I just finished.. So with that said, I believe if you are going for tests, and you already own 70-291 and 70-298 there is no reason to go out and get the MSPress of 70-293 since the material would have already been covered...

GET IT TOGETHER AMAZON. .......2007-02-23

I got a copy of the MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Core Requirements, Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, 70-294.I was very upset when I noticed that one of the books had a huge tear on the back cover. When you pay $200.00 for brand new books, in a sealed state they should be new when you take them out of the box , not dirty and beat up. Get it together Amazon.

Excellent content.......2007-01-12

All you need to know to sort out the 90% of the Administration issues in the every day administrator's life. Must have.

Ok, but needs a lot of work to be a real test prep guide........2006-12-12

One would think that a Microsoft Press book would be better edited; more technically detailed and have more thogrough explanations. But one would be wrong if they thought so. Microsoft, it seems to this reader, slapped together this study guide to make a couple of extra bucks or to just keep the writers busy. The level of user experience listed in the guides as a prerequisite for taking the MCSE exams is greater than the level that the books are geared for. If one has the prerequisite level of experience recommended in the guides then these books will be well below your experience level. However if you are very new to Active Directory and server environments this study guide will give you a fair introduction.
I will say this about Planning and Maintaining Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure by Craig Zacker, Mr. Zacker does not have any MS certifications which does not induce a lot of confidence of the author, and omits lots of really important technical information that is very relevant to planning a network, especially his descriptions of TCP/IP planning and sub netting. I noticed several typos and even some incorrect lab answers in each of the books.
All of the labs and diagnostic procedures are done the Microsoft way, which occasionally is not the way that things are done in the real world.
Trancender tests are ok, but Testking prep tests are way better.

Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape

Average customer rating:

More balanced view than many treatments.
An overview

Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape

Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262511010

Amazon.com

This series of 10 scholarly essays lays a foundation for understanding the current state of technology-based privacy issues. The diverse group of contributors encompasses the fields of communications, human-computer interaction, law, political science, and sociology. Each contributor provides a capsule view of a privacy concern from a standpoint of where things now stand and what bodes for the future. The book's most prevalent theme focuses on how advances in cybertechnology have led to greater threats to personal privacy, but have also led to greater promise for privacy protection. For example, editor Philip E. Agre's opening essay looks at the concept of a "Mirror World," where computer technology mirrors everything important happening in the real world.

Another contributor, Victoria Bellotti, examines multimedia environments, where work environments are wired for video and audio communication, and how individuals within them can be protected from unwelcome eyes and ears. Colin Bennett looks at how much of the world may be moving towards similar privacy protection standards. Other issues include varieties of privacy-enhancing technologies, the challenge of controlling surveillance, the effectiveness of privacy laws, and cryptography. The final chapter, "Interactivity as Though Privacy Matters," belongs to Rohan Samarajiva, who looks at the prospects for limited consensual surveillance between vendors and customers.

Book Description

Over the last several years, the realm of technology and privacy has been transformed, creating a landscape that is both dangerous and encouraging. Significant changes include large increases in communications bandwidths; the widespread adoption of computer networking and public-key cryptography; new digital media that support a wide range of social relationships; a massive body of practical experience in the development and application of data-protection laws; and the rapid globalization of manufacturing, culture, and policy making. The essays in this book provide a new conceptual framework for the analysis and debate of privacy policy and for the design and development of information systems.

Customer Reviews:

More balanced view than many treatments........2000-02-13

From Virginia Postrel's pollyannish embrace of technology to Reg Whitakers musings of government devolving power (the state withering away-an old notion yet to be validated by experience) to Jerry Furland's utterly terrifying vision, this latest entry, "Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape" at least allows that the jury is still out on this issue. Except for Furland, ("Transfer-the end of the beginning")each falls short of addressing what one can "DO" with this new technology and actually provides a credible blueprint in novel form. I recommend each of these authors, but I put my money on Furland being right.

An overview.......2000-02-11

This book is somewhat slanted toward "technology is bad" but not excessively so. The focus is on political issues and opinions. How well one likes these chapters depends on one's political leaning; few of the chapters manage to be balanced. The one chapter on technical matters is a nice but simple introduction to computer security. Many chapters have long reference lists for further study.

Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective (Information Revolution and Global Politics)

Average customer rating:

Good starting point
mobile fluff all the way - from start to end

Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective (Information Revolution and Global Politics)
Manuel Castells , Mireia Fernandez-Ardevol , Jack LinchuanQiu , and Araba Sey
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262033550

Book Description

Wireless networks are the fastest growing communications technology in history. Are mobile phones expressions of identity, fashionable gadgets, tools for life--or all of the above? Mobile Communication and Society looks at how the possibility of multimodal communication from anywhere to anywhere at any time affects everyday life at home, at work, and at school, and raises broader concerns about politics and culture both global and local.

Drawing on data gathered from around the world, the authors explore who has access to wireless technology, and why, and analyze the patterns of social differentiation seen in unequal access. They explore the social effects of wireless communication--what it means for family life, for example, when everyone is constantly in touch, or for the idea of an office when workers can work anywhere. Is the technological ability to multitask further compressing time in our already hurried existence?

The authors consider the rise of a mobile youth culture based on peer-to-peer networks, with its own language of texting, and its own values. They examine the phenomenon of flash mobs, and the possible political implications. And they look at the relationship between communication and development and the possibility that developing countries could "leapfrog" directly to wireless and satellite technology. This sweeping book--moving easily in its analysis from the United States to China, from Europe to Latin America and Africa--answers the key questions about our transformation into a mobile network society.

Customer Reviews:

Good starting point.......2007-09-27

The book provides a global view of mobile communication technologies penetration, adoption and use. It is global because of the widespread deployment of such technologies worldwide, as the authors claim. For that, both qualitative (especially case studies) and quantitative studies are used as a framework to elaborate and reinforce the authors presented arguments.

However, there are many limitations to this view as the study lacks some cross-referenced data to allow comparisons in different contexts in different countries. Further, it sometimes provides a slightly shallow view on a topic, especially when addressing developing countries (allegedly the main focus of the book) where many current trends still have only incipient researches. A reader interested in a deep understanding of economic implications of mobile communication technologies diffusion, for example, would need to dig the book's references and investigate the topic him or herself.

Another issue worth noting is the apparent lack of understanding of some technical fundamental aspects of mobile communications by the authors. In this context, new trends such as the role of technology convergence (through the use of IP networks) are missing and others such as the diffusion of viruses are completely biased (viruses as of this day is still not a threat for mobile devices).

Despite those issues, the authors raise categories (both economical - GDP, pricing systems, technology infrastructure, etc. - and social - age groups, gender, ethnicity, culture, etc.) and trends (collective sharing of mobile phones, prepaid services in poorer communities, the active role of young people, etc.), putting them together in a qualitative perspective that leads to what the authors called the "Mobile Network Society".

Overall, the book allows a fairly broad understanding of the topic and it is a good starting point for any researcher interested in overcome or build on top of the current understanding of this phenomenon.

mobile fluff all the way - from start to end.......2007-01-27

I was very dissapointed by the lack of understanding by the authors of the underlying mobile technology, the market dynamics, and the impact/correlation of the user behavior.
The authors fail to question the data obtained in their research and fail miserably to understand what they are actually stating as the thesis. Example, p117, 3rd paragraph: "At the same time, with the diffusion of smart phones euqipped with 3G or bluetooth technology, mobile-data services have begun to be vulnerable to computer worms and viruses." Unfortunately, the authors have fallen for the sensational news that hit the wires in 2005 that phones are be the next target of viruses; displaying a lack of thorough research in this matter alone. So far, worms and viruses are not a problem as the execution/installation of files is quite protected, ie Symbian OS, etc. I even question the description "3G equipped smart phones" as there also 3G phones that are not considered smart phones, eg non-camera phones.
Additonally, the conclusion, though it is a proven fact that mobile communication proliferation has had and continues to have a large impact on how we communicate, how social interaction as a whole is starting to change, forming not, as incorrectly stated, a subculture, but a connected society as a whole; far exceeding the impact the web has had in the past 10 years.
My recommendation is to leave this publication in the shelf (Mr. Castells' other works on the networked society, though, are a must read!!), save the money and time and conduct a quick google news search on mobile usage. You will get the same value within 30mins.

Average customer rating:

A mish-mash of articles that's not very actionable.
what any sw developer should know

International User Interfaces

Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0471149659

Book Description

Leading authorities from around the world discuss the latest topics in international user-interface design.

With most major companies in the computer industry depending on exports for 50 percent or more of their sales, user-interface design teams face a major challenge in making their products both useful and accessible to the global marketplace. It is no longer enough to simply offer a product translated in ten to twenty different languages. Users also want a product that acknowledges their unique cultural characteristics and business practices.

In International User Interfaces, Elisa del Galdo and Jakob Nielsen head a team of acknowledged international authorities who confront some of the problems currently facing international user-interface developers, including:

International Usability Engineering.
Developing a Cultural Model.
Arabization of Graphical User Interfaces.
Managing a Multiple-Language Document System.
An Intelligent Lexical Management System for Multilingual Machine Translation.
A Chinese Text Display Supported by an Algorithm for Chinese Segmentation.
Breaking the Language Barrier with Graphics.
Cultural Issues That Can Affect Training

Customer Reviews:

A mish-mash of articles that's not very actionable........2001-04-28

I had recently purchased the NielsenNorman group's International User Interfaces whitepaper, ..., was impressed with the whitepaper, and consequently had high hopes for this book. I was pretty disappointed. It's a mish-mash of articles, only a few of which were very actionable. One such article, in chapter 3, is pretty good in that it covers to what degree various cultures communicate explicitly versus non-explicitly. This fact alone is very useful to anyone doing usability testing or market research outside the US.

what any sw developer should know.......1998-07-31

We also recommend the book "SW Internationalization and Localization" by Uren, Howard, Perinotti.

Average customer rating:

Cyberspace Overview
does not live up to expectations..
Geography and the Web

Mapping Cyberspace
Martin Dodge
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415198844

Book Description

A ground-breaking book, Mapping Cyberspace provides an understanding of what cyberspace looks like and the social interactions that take place there. Written by and inter-disciplinary team of scholars this study explores the impacts of cyberspace on cultural, political and economic relations. Information on a companion website is also included.

Customer Reviews:

Cyberspace Overview.......2007-05-26

As with any book covering the evolving space we call cyberspace, this book is dated at its printing. However, the issues and thoughts brought up in it are ones that are valid over time. A must read.

does not live up to expectations.........2006-04-30

Although the book boasts what seems as an interesting approach, it rarely lives up to the idea of cross-breeding geography with studies of the Internet. I found myself lost in endless rants on what can now be assumed to be common wisdom (i.e. explanations and definitions of the www, e-mail, usenet, etc.). Furthermore, I have found a lot of typos, which I find not only sloppy, but simply disgusting given the price of the book. Methodologically the book seems very rich, but it fails to elaborate thorougly on issues. An example of the latter would be the chapter on cyberspace, which quotes many authors being of relevance to the study of cyberspace, but how exactly is not thorougly discussed, it is merely mentioned.

On a more theoretical level, I find the authors' emphasis on spatiality intriguing, but not as relevant as they pose it is. I strongly disagree with their virtual / actual distinction, which can only clutter theoretical discussions on the implications of cyberspace on our lives. I fail to see why people still metaphysically dichotomize the so-called 'real world' with the digital world. Sure, there are differences, but who would disagree networked information technologies have an impact on us?

Just what the future of cartography / geography will be remains extremely shady and mysterious. Sad but true.

Geography and the Web.......2004-03-04

Cyberspace has a connectivity all its own; these days most commonly expressed by the linkages between HTML documents put on the web. Conversely, the real world has a physical geography. Thus far, there have been some linkages between the two, like mapping software on the web.

But the authors go way beyond that simple application. They provide imaginative suggestions of how cyberspace, and most importantly, a pervasive wireless connectivity to it, can enable a nomadic environment where you can get information from cyberspace about your physical surroundings. Plus, of course, enhanced interactions with those surroundings, based on this data.

It appears that the study and use of geography, as currently performed, may soon undergo profound changes, in a way that will give it key commercial utility.

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