Recommended Reading

Last Updated Updated February 2, 2007

List of Books (alphabetical by Title): (See my Amazon.com Associates store for quick access to my books and my most recent Recommended Readings.)

101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions: The Art of Chindogu. D. Papia, Trans. New York: Norton. www.chindogu.com Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Editor.
Every Chindogu is an almost useless object, but not every almost useless object is a Chindogu. In order to transcend the realms of the merely almost useless, and join the ranks of the really almost useless, certain vital criteria must be met. It is these criteria, a set of ten vital tenets, that define the gentle art and philosophy of Chindogu.
So begins the creed of Chindogu, a collection of weird and wacky inventions from Japan, guaranteed to be almost practical, but useless. (Inventions that turn out to be useful are taken off the list). For me, this is the perfect accompaniment to Carelman's "Impossible Objects."

Also see the sequel, Kawakami, K., & Papia, D. (1998). 99 more unuseless Japanese inventions: the art of Chindogu (1st American Ed.). New York N Y: W.W. Norton & Co. They also have a website: The chindogu website.

Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

Behavior-Based Robots. Ron Arkin. 1998: MIT Press.

(If you want to learn about the technology behind behavior-based robots, the text I used to teach myself is Ron Arkin's Behavior-Based Robots. 1998: MIT Press.)

Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. Malcolm Gladwell. 2005: New York: Little Brown and Company.

Blink provides an easy to read, reasonably accurate description of the power of subconscious processing.

Basically, Gladwell documents the numerous situations where one's instant, subconscious reactions are more accurate than the later, more reasoned, deliberations. The book provides an excellent set of examples of situations where these instant responses are indeed superior, as well as numerous examples where they aren't.

What the book lacks is a decent theoretical explanation. I believe these results come about because we are primarily pattern-matching mechanisms, and experts have had sufficient experience with the domain that they can match patterns rapidly and efficiently. This is all automatic -- subconscious - so often the expert doesn't have any idea why that particular decision was reached, simply that it "felt" right. This, to me, is the power of the behavioral level of processing.

Deliberate reasoning, which to me is done at the reflective level, is slower, more apt to be rule based, and often does not consider the same contextual cues.

What Gladwell fails to stress (although a careful reading will find it in the book) is that these immediate responses are only accurate for experts. That is, unless you have spent years in a domain, don't trust those subconscious thoughts. Automaticity, whether in creative problem solving or the playing of sports and musical instruments comes at a price: practice, practice, and practice.

But, these caveats aside, I highly recommend the book. Gladwell is an excellent writer who has done his homework well.

One reader of this review suggested that the Psychological Bulletin article by Matthew Lieberman was "The Rosetta Stone" of intuition. I agree that this is an excellent article, reviewing much of the scientific research underlying "intuition," which is indeed the basis for Blink. Lieberman, M. D. (2000). Intuition: A social cognitive neuroscience approach. Psychological Bulletin, 126 (1), 109-137.

Lieberman's article is intended for those with a good background in experimental psychology and neuroscience. Others may find it difficult to follow. But for those up to the challenge, I recommend it highly. (The article is not available online, except by paid subscription. But the journal — and online access to the article — is carried by most university libraries.)

Link to book at Amazon.com

Creating breakthrough ideas: the collaboration of anthropologists and designers in the product development industry. Squires, S., & Byrne, B. 2002: Westport CT: Bergin & Garvey.

I have long preached that anthropological field methods provide the best methodology for truly understanding people and the way they interact with products. Here, finally, is a collection of essays that describe the results when anthropologists do collaborate with product designers. Hurrah! A marvelous set of essays
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

Crypto: How the code rebels beat the government -- saving privacy in the digital age. Steven Levy 2001: Penguin Books.

— Steven Levy is a great science writer. First, he understands both the technical side and the human and social side of our technologies. Second, he has a light, engaging writing style that makes even the most complex topics seem simple. Crypto has all of these characteristics.

Ever puzzle over the nature of modern encryption? Levy explains how it works in nice, easy to understand manner.
This is a topic of critical importance to all of us as we move into the era of ubiquitous information. All our information is available to us whenever we want it and wherever we may be. That's the good side.

Alas, all this same information is also thereby available to everyone else, no matter who they are, no matter where they be. The bad guys. Cryptography is the protection, but it gets mired in a complex mix of arguments, legalities, and political issues.

The government is correct: it must have access to our encrypted material in order to make the world safe from terrorists. The everyday citizen is right: we need privacy of our ideas and the history of government spying and misuse of evidence is too overwhelming to give us faith that we should simply "trust the government."
After all, we have secret ballots for a reason: there is nothing illegal about voting. There is nothing illegal about selecting one candidate over another. But the ballot has to be secret to protect the whole fabric of democracy. So too must our own private thoughts and business.

A great book.

(Also see "Secrets and Lies," on this website).

Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

Designing Web Usability: The practice of simplicity. Jakob Nielsen 2001: New Riders

— Jakob's latest; vintage Nielsen, with pithy, deep insights into the nature of the web -- writing for it, developing it, using it..
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com >

Everything bad is good for you: How today's popular culture is actually making us smarter. Steven Johnson 2005: New York: Riverhead Books.

This book gets an A+ for creativity, originality, and sheer ingeniousness. But creditability? I give it an I: I for Incomplete.

Johnson has put forth a delightful argument that the complexity and richness of modern video games, television shows, and movies require so much active participation from players and viewers, so much active engagement and problem solving, that rather than being the mindless, mind-numbing time-wasters of popular criticism, these activities strengthen problem-solving and reasoning abilities.

To this end, he launches a vigorous defense, complete with clever charts that demonstrate the complexity of today's games and shows.

Alas, every beginning psychology student knows why we require unbiased, blind judges to assess such issues as complexity, why we require data rather than clever argumentation. Johnson created his own analyses, which makes them susceptible to all sorts of biases, both conscious and unconscious. Moreover, he deliberately focuses upon the complexity of the game and show structure, not the content, and he argues that content doesn't matter. Hah. Even if his hypotheses are correct, there is no evidence — nor does Johnson pretend there is — that the enhanced problem-solving skills come along with advanced understanding of how to create a logical argument, how to reason from evidence, and how to reach sustainable, justifiable conclusions.

So, I have to conclude that the book presents a fascinating argument, one worthy of deep consideration. But I don't believe the arguments, not yet anyway. Mind you, he might be correct: it's simply that the evidence presented in the book is not sufficient to know.

So read the book. Think about it. Debate it. And please, will some social scientists pick up the cause and do the proper, correct analyses to judge the worthiness of the hypotheses. Until then: not proven.

Link to book at Amazon.com

Flesh and Machines: How robots will change us. Rodney Brooks. 2002: Pantheon Books.

— A non-technical book by the inventor of behavior-based architectures for robots, an approach that has revolutionized the field. I believe that robots will indeed come to pass; I mean household robots, probably on wheels, perhaps with legs, and almost definitely stationary robots, built into appliances, as in the pantry/dishwasher, the coffee machine, the cooking/refrigeration unit, and the coffee machine.
Then the household robot will scamper about, finding the dirty cups and saucers to deliver to the dishwasher, so it can wash them and deliver them to the pantry. Ask for a cup of coffee and the pantry will give a clean cup to the coffee machine to fill with coffee, to give to the robot, to bring to you in your armchair. Whew.

No, that's not in this book -- that's in my next book. But it almost is in his book: his examples are just as much fun -- maybe even more fun. More importantly, if you want to know how this would ever be possible, you have to read his book(s). Rodney Brooks has done the work that will make this all come to pass.

I particularly enjoyed his discussions of what it takes to enter the toy market (pages 107 on) and his two chapters on possible applications: Chapter 5: Machines to Live With and Chapter 6: Where Am I?

Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

Funology: from usability to enjoyment. Blythe, M. A., Overbeeke, K., Monk, A. F., & Wright, P. C. 2003: Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

A truly excellent collection of papers about the power and importance of fun, pleasure, and emotion in design. Here is an area in which the European researchers lead the way and this book, with three UK editors and one Dutch, puts together a mostly European cast of writers. Highly recommended: A great beginning for this most important and badly neglected area of research.

Unfortunately, this is published by an academic publisher who charges ridiculously high prices. And then they will wonder why the book doesn't sell, and probably raise the price even higher for the next book they publish because "these books don't sell well."

Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

Handbook of human factors and ergonomics Gavriel Salvendy 2005: Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

I’m often asked for reading suggestions, especially for references to the literature on Human Factors and Ergonomics.

In the past few months, I have been reading chapters of one book that has it all: Gavriel Salvendy’s massive tome, the Handbook of human factors and ergonomics. It is huge, with over 1,500 pages and 61 chapters. It takes two pages just to list the advisors, ten pages to list the authors of the chapters. It is also expensive: $250.

Buy it.

The articles are all excellent. They all reflect up-to-date reviews of the areas they cover. They are wonderful self-study material, wonderful references, and would make excellent material in multiple courses. Yes, it is obscenely expensive, but this one book is the equivalent of ten normal books. Consider it as essential piece of professional equipment. Buy it. Use it.

If you don’t know human factors, this is a great way to find the parts relevant to your work. And even if you are an expert, this book will be valuable because it is unlikely that you are expert at all the topics covered here, yet very likely you will need some of the ones you are not (yet) expert at. I follow my own advice. I consider myself an expert (I am a Fellow of the Human Factors Society), but I still learn each time I read from these pages.

So yes, grit your teeth and buy the book.

You can find the Table of Contents at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip057/2005003111.html
And also at the publisher (with brief abstract of each chapter):
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/bookhome/112467581/

Salvendy, G. (Ed.). (2005). Handbook of human factors and ergonomics (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
(Comment: The two terms, “Human Factors” and “Ergonomics” today mean the same thing, even though they have slightly different origins: Human Factors originated in the United States and Ergonomics primarily in Europe. The overlap in meaning is so high that a few years ago the American Human Factors Society changed their name to “Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.”)

Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built. S. Brand 1994: Viking

— Buildings change throughout their lifetime. This is the best of folk design: keep changing to accommodate life's changes.
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How the Mind Works. S. Pinker 1997: Norton

— Witty, erudite, complete, opinionated. But I happen to agree with the opinions. I have only one regret about this book – jealousy. This is the book I have always wanted to write.
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com >

Information Appliances and Beyond. Eric Bergman, Editor Morgan Kaufmann

— My book "The Invisible Computer" explains the "why" of Information appliances, this one explains the "how." This is an excellent collection of how to do it stories. If you are in this business, get the book. (Disclaimer: Chapter 1 is "A Conversation with Don Norman". This link goes to the Morgan Kaufmann Publishers site.)
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com >

Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy. Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian 1998: Harvard Business Press

— This "new" Internet economy isn't that new: it is still governed by the standard economic principles. What is new is the emphasis on such concepts as lock-in, cost of switching (how much time, money, and effort a customer must expend to switch from one competitive product to another), the importance of intellectual property rights, standards, the impact of network effects, and positive feedback. In The Invisible Computer I distinguished between substitutable and non-substitutable goods. This book provides a richer and deeper discussion of the issues. Shapiro and Varian are economists at UC, Berkeley. This book is must reading for those who wish to understand today's business wars.

Although I find the analyses in Information Rules cogent, I felt more and more disturbed as I read the book, starting halfway through and increasing as I got to the end. The reason? The complete lack of morality. The authors are pure economists who see the interplay of companies and business strategies as economic games to be analyzed as quaint exercises for the reader. There is no sense that the customers so blithely talked about are more than economic numbers, that they are people. Customer service, treating customers properly, even the time-tested management theories of one-to-one marketing where the customer really does matter are either bypassed or analyzed solely in terms of economic impact. Whatever happened to doing right because it was right, not because the economics worked out?
Thus, if you have loyal, dedicated customers and you are about to introduce a new product that will make all their investments obsolete, what do you do? Answer-- soak them-- after all, those dummies are loyal, they will follow you no matter what you do to them. Charge your loyal customers the most, but offer discounts and other enticements to those who are not your customers to induce them to switch. (If you must, disable something so you can justify the price difference.)

This, by the way, is exactly how Apple Computer has always treated its most loyal customers. And it is the trick that IBM used in its Series E laser printers: they added a part that slowed up the printing speed of the cheaper model from 10 pages/minute to 5 so that they could charge a lot more money for the same printer that didn't have that part.

Exploit the power of lock-in to make it difficult for them to switch away. (Notice how Microsoft Office readily imports files from all of its competitors (lowering the cost of switching from them to Microsoft) but it does not offer such easy ways of writing files readable by the competitors (making the cost of switching from Microsoft high). The same story is repeated with regard to "open systems," the development of international standards, and other business tactics. There is no sense of right or wrong, only economics.

Pointer to the book at Amazon.com >

Infrastructure: A field guide to the industrial landscape Brian Hayes 2005: New York: W.W. Norton

Brian Hayes, who writes the Computing Science column for journal American Scientist, has produced this delightful, informative book about the infrastructure that keeps society going.  Heavily illustrated with photographs, almost entirely taken by Hayes, the text informs and delights.  The book is large and lavishly illustrated, so you might be tempted to treat it like a coffee-table book, one of those tomes you put on the table and never look at again. It would be a mistake to treat it this way. Infrastructure is critical to the maintenance of society, and within it are many critical technologies. Just because they are hidden from everyday sight does not mean they are unimportant: without them, our everyday society would collapse. Moreover, Hayes is a delightful writer, so what could be ponderous and technical text is instead delightful, witty, and informative.

Here are the chapter topics: mining, water supplies and sewerage, food and farming, oil and gas, power plants and the connecting power grid, communication structures, roads, railroads, bridges and tunnels, aviation, shipping, wastes and recycling. You may not have thought you were interested in these topics, but after reading this book, you will change your mind.

Link to book at Amazon.com
Inner Navigation: How we get lost and how we find our way. Erik Jonsson 2002: Scribner.

— Erik Jonsson is a very special person: a retired engineer who has practiced and studied the ways by which people wonder about the world, finding their way -- and losing it. I confess to a very special bias for Erik and this book. I have known Erik for years. I encouraged him to put his ideas into writing and to publish the book. And I wrote the introduction. But why not? To paraphrase my introduction, "I have learned more about the science of human navigation from this witty, quirky, fascinating book of stories than from the many scientific journals I read."
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

Intelligent vehicle technology and trends. Richard Bishop 2005: Boston, MA: Artech House.

In my essay, "There's an Automobile in HCI's Future," I argue that the human side of automation in the automobile business has been neglected and, unless tended to properly, will turn out to be the weak link. Well, here is the perfect book for any of you who wish to pursue this direction — perfect for classes, perfect to get up to date with the work that has been done. You might be amazed at how far the work has progressed.

This is an excellent, readable compilation of work on intelligent automobiles around the world — autos that can drive themselves, almost. The Human Factors sections of this book are the weakest — which is why we need more experts in this domain to get involved. The fault, I hasten to add, does not lie in the book: it simply reports the current state of affairs.

Warning: Although this book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to work in this domain, the price is a bit high for the average consumer: $89.00. Nonetheless, there is no alternative if you care about this field.

Link to book at Amazon.com

Note that Chapter 6 can be downloaded as a PDF file from the publisher: Lateral/Side Sensing and Control Systems

Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate. S. Johnson 1997: HarperCollins

— An informed, witty essay on how the technology of computer interfaces changes the way we think. After all, it is "Things That Make Us Smart."
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com >

Multimedia: From Wagner to virtual reality. Randall Packer & Ken Jordan 2001: NY: Norton

— Many of the original writings that played so significant a role in developing the modern internet and multimedia revolution are reprinted in the truly excellent compilation edited by Packer and Jordan. Many of the papers that had profound impact upon my development -- to say nothing of that of the entire industry -- are all here: papers by Norbert Wiener, JCR Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Myron Krueger, Alan Kay, Vannevar Bush, Ted Nelson Tim Berners-Lee, and Ivan Sutherland. A truly excellent compilation.

You might also wish to visit the website at artmuseum.net that describes itself as "the interactive companion to the book of the same title."
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com >

Natural capitalism: Creating the next industrial revolution.
In the bubble: Designing in a complex world.
The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid.
Three important new books on design

Tired of Design as sexy packaging to sell products to people who don't really need them? Try these books as antidotes.

Hawken, P., Lovins, A. B., & Lovins, L. H. (1999). Natural capitalism: Creating the next industrial revolution. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.

Thackara, J. (2005). In the bubble: Designing in a complex world. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Prahalad, C. K. (2005). The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing.

Natural Capitalism is a truly important book that demonstrates how through proper design and conceptualization of many of our products, buildings, and services, we can have better results with minimal or even zero negative impact upon the environment. This book is yet another publication of the Rocky Mountain Institute, which provides multiple papers and demonstrations of the viability of these concepts, many of which have been adopted my major industrial companies. I know both Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, and they both are tireless crusaders. They ought to be. This is a detailed book, not light reading. But it is critically important and powerful.

Thackara presents a different message, but one that is closely related (with frequent references to the work of Hawken, Lovins, & Lovins). In my back-jacket blurb for the book I said:

"Design with a conscience: that's the take-home message of this important, provocative book. John Thackara, long a major force in design, now takes on an even more important challenge &emdash; making the world safe for future inhabitants. We need to design from the edge, says Thackara, to learn from the world, and to stop designing for, but instead, to design with If everyone would heed his prescriptions, the world would indeed be a better place. Required reading &emdash; required behavior."

Prahalad's book shows how it is possible to develop products for developing nations in a way that is economically sound and effective. But to do this requires radical new thinking on the part of major companies: they can't just take their existing products and services and push them into the developing world. Prahalad shows this should be done from the bottom-up, with the people who will be directly affected involved in the development and deployment. Start small. Think small. Make it simple, inexpensive, and make sure it fits into their lives and culture. The title of the book points out that many companies ignore the bottom of the marketplace in the developing world because the people are poor. Yes, but they are also savvy entrepreneurs, and yes, they are poor, but if the product is worthwhile, and designed to be inexpensive enough, there is a huge profit to be made: there are literally billions of people as potential customers.

This book reinforces the themes the Rocky Mountain Institute: doing good for human kind and for the environment can also be good for business.

Obviously, these are not the only books attempting to move design toward a more humane, sustainable environment. One of the earliest and most effective was Papanek's Design for the real world. (It was published in two editions, and the two are significantly different from one another.):

Papanek, V. (1971, second edition 1984). Design for the real world, human ecology and social change. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers.

Papanek, V. J. (1984). Design for the real world, human ecology and social change. (2nd, completely rev. ed.). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.

Pointers to books at Amazon.com:

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution

In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change

Natural-born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Clark, A. 2003: New York: Oxford University Press.

Fun, yet disturbing. Delightful, yet deep. Andy Clark combines a broad array of insights and stories into a charming, yet profound, excursion into what it means to be human as more and more we rely upon -- and may even be coupled to -- our technology.
What will it mean to be human as we modify ourselves more and more through artificial means. We have already started: we can't exist without our external technologies for food and clothing, transportation and strength. Books, calculators, and computers are becoming indispensable aids to cognition. Now we are adding implants, chemical enhancers, even electromagnetic ones. Some are necessary for medical reasons, but when the medical cure becomes superior to the biological original, what then?
Clark covers all these topics with verve, humor, and depth -- after all, he is a philosopher by profession. I want to teach a course using it. I want to tell my friends. The neatest part is that it is both fun and deep, a hard trick to pull off, but he managed wonderfully. I read it in a day, but I know I will return to it often.
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

On intelligence. Jeff Hawkins with Sandra Blakeslee. 2004: New York: Times Books.

Jeff Hawkins has always wanted to be a brain scientist, even if his day job was to invent and improve upon the Palm PDA and the Treo Phone. He funded the Redwood Neuroscience Institute to allow him to pursue his dream, This book is his first major publication. It's a trade book, short on details, but I believe he is putting forth an important point of view. Hawkins suggests that the cortex is a predictive mechanism, and its six layers are complex pattern recognizers and prediction mechanisms, where perception and action are tightly intertwined (inseparable), and the memory is associative (a small part can match the whole), stored in relative coding (which is why it is size, position, and temporally invariant, among other invariants.

The main theme is that the brain is an expectations machine -- always generating expectations (a feed-forward process), and matching those expectations with reality.

I think there is much to be said for his point of view. It forces a dynamic, active view of mental states which is quite different from the static, states of processing view of traditional cognitive theorizing. I like it and think that it has the possibility to lead to significant advances in our understanding an din our ability to model brain processes.

But be warned. The book is low on details, so there is considerable hand-waving. The heart of the book is Chapter 6. It won't take long to read the first five chapters —they are useful, but light. Chapter six is the meat. And then you should stop. I believe his speculations about about consciousness and creativity and about the future of intelligent machines are both nonsensical as well as a dangerous overhyping of otherwise good ideas. Hawkins complains that people in AI and Neural Networks overhyped their potential. Hah: this book is certainly their equal in that regard.

Hawkins concentrates almost entirely on the cortex. You will find little about other brain areas here and nothing about the emotional system. Jeff is a pure cognitivist. All the action takes place in the cortex, and all has to do with prediction.

In a private conversation, Hawkins agreed that the book lacks important details, but he told me that his non-profit research institute (The Redwood Neuroscience Institute) has developed those ideas further and that he is starting a new company to exploit them. "This," said Jeff, "is the future of computing." (The company is has now been announced: Numenta.)

Still, I believe the major thrust of the book is very important. I think the problems are a lot more difficult than he thinks, even if I believe that his approach is an important step forward. Watch and see.

Link to book at Amazon.com

Painting by numbers: Komar and Melamid's scientific guide to art. Komar, V., Melamid, A., & Wypijewski, J. 1997: New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

OK, so they are pulling our leg, ok, so they aren't really serious, or scientific. Nonetheless, Komar and Melamid demonstrate most convincingly and amusingly why design should not be done by focus groups. The book is a hell of a lot of fun, besides raising profound questions about the meaning of art.

Actually, you could take their argument one step further and say that this book undermines the very concept of user-centered, iterative design. Want design that works for everyone? Follow user-centered design methods – follow Komar and Melamid's methods. The result is sensible, dull, pedestrian, and uninspired. Great design comes from breaking the rules, from not listening to the averaged voice of the average citizen. In the Chapter 3 of Emotional Design, I use their results to argue that maybe dictatorship in design is a good thing. I'm writing an essay on this topic and will hyperlink it when I get it done. Meanwhile, read Henry Lieberman's wonderful essay on the topic: Lieberman, H. (2003). The Tyranny of Evaluation.

Pointer to "Painting by numbers" at Amazon.com

Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do. Fogg, B. J. 2002: New York: Morgan Kaufman Publishers.

BJ (yes, that's how he likes to be called) has created an important new discipline: captology -- computers as persuasive technologies. Captology is of vital importance to everyone: the person in the street, the ethicist, the marketing and advertising person, and of course those who build, deploy, and use modern technology. Today's technology is used to change attitudes and behavior. This creates powerful opportunities, multiple challenges, and severe ethical issues. This powerful, yet easy-to-read book addresses the issues critically, with insight, and in depth.
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

Secrets & Lies: Digital security in a networked world. Bruce Schneier. 2000: Wiley

— In the end, security depends upon people. You can have the most powerful encryption in the world, but the weak link is the systems, procedures, and people who implement them.

There is a nasty tradeoff between ease of use (and systems appropriate for people) and systems that are safe, secret, and secure. Practice so-called "good" security, and you end up with unlearnable passcodes. Worse, with dozens of unlearnable codes, each of which should be changed monthly. What do people do in those cases? They either change the codes to simple phrases (or their address, birthdays, or pet's name), or they write them down, tape them to their computers, and otherwise manage to survive. In other words, the more secure you make the security, the less secure the system.

This is why, end to end, only a biometric system will work. But think of the horrors there. If your retinal code is once misused or misappropriated, you may never ever be allowed to log on, or to buy anything.

Also see "Crypto," above.)

Pointer to the book at Amazon.com >

Six degrees: the science of a connected age. Watts, D. J. 2003: New York: W.W. Norton

The great surprise of this book was how much it taught me about topics I never expected to find here: how new products spread (diffusion of innovation), the organization of firms, the differences between the spread of disease and the spread of computer viruses, and, of course, the six degrees of separation that supposedly exists among any two random people on the globe (basically false in detail but true in spirit, with the interesting issue being not why any two people can be linked through a small chain (some chains are as long as 25 intermediaries), but rather how anyone ever discovers the path). A fascinating book that introduces a new mathematical tool and its many fascinating variants that promises to have large impact on a surprisingly varied set of phenomena from many diverse fields. This is of special importance to social sciences and business. And on top of all this, the book is readable and engaging, with a lengthy, annotated bibliography. What more could one want?
Pointer to the book at Amazon.com

Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A unified theory of the web. David Weinberger 2002: Perseus

— David Weinberger writes the lively JOHO journal on the web. This book consists of deep, provocative reflections on the nature of the internet and what it means to our lives. As I said on the back jacket: the best of all combinations: deep, thoughtful commentary written as light easy reading. (Weinberger is one of the authors of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" -- see below
Pointer to the book at Amazon.co

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. Levine, R., Locke, C., Searls, D., & Weinberger, D. 2000: Perseus Books.

— I told them not to write it, but they did it anyway. Four weirdoes who seem to think that companies should treat their customers with respect, that software should work, that websites should deliver value. If you can stand this kind of nonsense, written with a non-stop hypnotic fervor that defies logic, reason, and emotion. Well, what can I say? Hell, I even subscribe to David Weinberger's JOHO Journal and Chris Locke's Rageboy (that's his alternative personality). And see my review of Weinberger's other book, above.

But don't say I didn't warn you. These people never read "Information Rules" (see review below): don't they realize that software is supposed to have faults -- otherwise, why would people ever buy the upgrade?

So if you do read Information Rules, then please read the Cluetrain Manifesto afterwards to get that bad taste out of your mouth. (Don't blame the authors of Information Rules --they are just reporting the facts-- telling as it is. The bad taste is because we would like it to be different.)

Pointer to the book at Amazon.com >

The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the revolution that made computing personal. M. Mitchell Waldrop 2001: Viking

— I am biased, but this is the very best book I have yet read on the development of the Information processing industry -- the PC, the Internet, etc. I lived through this era and know, studied with, or am good friends of a large proportion of people discussed here. It is strange, but when you are living through a revolution, it is invisible. That's why books like this that put everything in perspective are so valuable. Sure, we knew it was exciting, but we thought that was the way things always were.
I seem to have followed just a few years behind all the events described here, so I benefited from the results, whether it was the TX-0 computer, the early PDP series, Lick himself, or the people and early Alto machines at Xerox PARC I knew Lick when he was just a psychoacoustician (the field I started in), so I am delighted to have him receive proper recognition for the seminal role he played, especially in funding the early days of time-shared computers from his vantage pint at ARPA.
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The Forgotten Arts and Crafts. John Seymour 2001: Dorling Kindersley

— If you liked "The Psychology of Everyday Things, you should love this one. It's about folk design, folk art, folk construction. I pick up the book and read at random, learning all the while, fascinated all the while. Stiles – what a marvelous set of inventions -- affording passage by humans and the anti-affordance of non-passage by animals, but requiring different solutions for different animals. How all sorts of things were made -- cider, paper, lye and soap, cheese, spinning wheels, barrels, fishnets, knives. I could go on and on.

Beautifully (and functionally) illustrated with photographs and drawings. Part of the charm of the book is the author's crustiness and utter disdain for anything manufactured as opposed to hand made. Anyway, a delight for the history, for the knowledge, and for enjoyment.

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The Myth of the Paperless Office. Abigail Sellen & Richard Harper 2001: MIT Press

— An important book, not just about paper but about how people accomplish their work. Here is how I put it on the book jacket: Paper is the old-fashioned technology that refuses to die -- and for good reason. As this pioneering study by Sellen and Harper shows, paper supports many needs and work styles better than any other medium. As a result, paper is the perfect complement to electronic documents, superior at many things, inferior at many. Want to know if an organization is working efficiently? Sellen and Harper say to check the wastebaskets -- they should be full.
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The Science of Star wars. Cavelos, J. 1999: New York: St. Martin's Press.

— I stumbled across the book by accident, but I found her treatment fascinating, and in the areas at which I am expert, accurate and informative. In particular, Chapter 3, "Droids" (pp. 78-125), contains an excellent review and analysis of the development, form, intelligence and emotions in robots. The emphasis is on C3PO (Threepio) and R2D2 (Artoo), but Cavelos does a truly excellent job of discussing the general issues and developments within AI and robotics in general. Fun reading, and informative even to experts.
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The book on the bookshelf. Henry Petroski 1999: Knopf

— I always read everything written by Petroski. Erudite essays on everyday things, the pencil, bridges, engineering design, and now bookshelves. In this, his most recent work, a fascinating look at the history of bookshelves, libraries and printing practices, he describes my visit to his home and his annoyance that I was more interested in the books on his bookshelves than in the shelves themselves. Ah well.
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The field guide to human error investigations. Sidney Dekker 2002: Ashgate.

"The old view of human error," the book starts off saying, is that "human error is a cause of accidents. ... The new view of human error," it continues, "is that "human error is a symptom of trouble deeper inside a system." Hurrah! Hurrah! Sidney Dekker has provided us with a delightful book, well written, filled with engaging tales of accidents and the ensuing investigations, but concluding with a most helpful guide to the understanding of accidents and the appropriate way to investigate the. Although the primary focus is on aviation, there are examples from many disciplines, and the lessons will be of great value to everyone.
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The geography of thought Nisbett, R. E. 2003 Free Press

Do Asians think differently than Westerners? This important book provides some pretty compelling reasons to think so. Asians, or more accurately East Asians, or even more accurately, people from China, Japan, and South Korea show important differences in the way they perceive, classify, and judge objects and events from people in the United States and Western Europe. Westerners believe in the primacy of objects and logic, that is, logic as defined by early Greek scholars. Thus, if there are two contradictory statements, one must be wrong, the other right. Westerners tend to see objects and when learning a language, to learn nouns before verbs. East Asians believe in relationships and context. When there are contradictory statements, they try to understand the context and find a resolution that accepts both — think Yin and Yang. East Asians tend to see contexts and place as much importance on the background as the foreground. In learning a language they learn relationships first, which means verbs rather than nouns.

The book is readable and convincing. The author, Richard Nisbett, is a senior, well-known and respected social psychologist. In this co-mingled world, where West interacts with East on a continual basis, the more we understand about one another, the better all of us will be. This book is required reading.

Excerpts from Chapter 1.

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The human factor: revolutionizing the way people live with technology. Kim Vicente. 2003: Knopf Canada.

Kim Vicente is one of the major figures in the application of human-centered design principles to domains other than websites and software. He has written several important books, this being his most recent. This is a very readable book, and it has just the right emphasis of accident reports, lively-reading incidents, and science, guaranteed to turn you into a convert: we -- cognitive engineers -- know how to design systems for people. But system designers have failed to give design for the users the attention required. We still blame people for accidents. Human error? No, the culprit is bad design.

Here is what I said about the book on the back-cover blurb: This book can save lives. Strong words? Yes, but this is a strong book: engaging, easy to read, but carrying a powerful message. We have far too long neglected the human and social side of technology. When accidents happen, we rush to find blame, to sue, fire, penalize and otherwise punish people when it is the system that at fault. The result is needless accidents in vehicles, hospitals, manufacturing plants and, worse, no way of stemming the tide, of learning from our actions and making life better, safer, more enjoyable. "The Human Factor" can indeed revolutionize the way we live with technology.

Read this book: it can save lives.

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Thoughtless acts? Observations on intuitive design. Jane Fulton Suri & IDEO. 2005: San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

A brilliant book, fun and educational to peruse, and wonderful for training the art of ethnographic observation. This short book is basically all photographs and no text. Indeed, most of the text consists of captions to the figures, and these are all hidden at the back of the book, making it difficult to read along with the photographs. In other words, you have to supply your own interpretations. The result is a brilliant tool for teaching and enhancing one’s observational skills.

The book is by Jane Fulton Suri, IDEO’s resident expert on human behavior. (IDEO, for the non-designers reading this, is one of the world’s foremost industrial design companies, headquartered a few blocks from my home in Palo Alto, CA.) Each photograph shows how people use the existing environment to enable their lives. Flat surfaces are good for supporting, so why not use the top of a trashcan, or a protruding edge in a building wall to hold one’s lunch, or personal items. Protruding objects can serve as hooks, so why not hang light objects from it? Etc. The captions, Jane explained in her talk at IDEO where she described the book, are hidden in the back so as not to bias the viewer. Learn to analyze the photograph and determine for yourself what is of interest and what the interpretation might be. Read the caption afterwards (or perhaps never) to see what her thoughts were. To read the captions first would bias the viewer, and Jane holds that her observations are not necessarily more correct or complete than yours. And it is this lack of captions that makes the book such a wonderful teaching tool. It is difficult to chat, so the viewer is forced to observe, to think, and to speculate. “You can see a lot,” said Yogi Berra, “just by looking.” Well, this book teaches looking.

I find it valuable and enjoyable to pick the book up and open to a random page. Then I try to figure out what it was about a particular scene that made it worth including. Some are obvious, some not at all. But even the obvious scenes often have non-obvious observations waiting to be made. Many reviewers of the book have complained that it is lacking in substance. That’s because the substance is provided by the reader. The photographs are divided into seven categories: reacting?, responding?, co-opting?, exploiting?, adapting?, conforming?, and signaling?. Why the question marks? Because even the categorization is provisional: you are free to recategorize and relabel.

The book also has a website — http://www.thoughtlessacts.com/ — which both contains the photos from the book and allows readers to add their own.

The most surprising thing is the really poor design of the website, this for a book by someone who is truly a pioneer in “human-centered design.” I hope she had nothing to do with the design. Tiny font. I mean tiny. Is it resizable? Of course not — hey, this is DESIGN! Designers don’t do readable type, let alone resizable.

(I deleted a large diatribe about the inadequacies of the website. No, the website hasn’t improved, but I’m resigned to the shoemaker’s shoes problem: Design firms seem to be universal in their inability to design useful websites. They turn it over to the Flash developers, who love tiny font and ineffective controls: oops, here I go again. And here I promised myself to be nice.) (My comments about the websites have really annoyed both Jane Fulton Suri and the folks at IDEO. That's life. Still, I decided to remove most of the comments.)

I recently came across an excellent review of this book, one that reviews and informs. See Kevin Henry’s article on Core77 -- Making Do and Getting By + Thoughtless Acts (Mapping the quotidian from two perspectives).


Buy the book. Even the most skilled observer will find new insights. You will never view the world the same again. I give it away as a gift.
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Universal Principles of Design. William Lidwell, Kritina Holden & Jill Butler 2003: Gloucester, MA: Rockport Publishers.
I was in downtown Chicago with a few hours to kill, so of course I headed for the nearest bookstore and starting browsing in the Design section. Lo and behold, I found this book. An hour later I was still there, still reading. So I bought it. The subtitle tells all: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design. Now that I have had time to study the book more carefully, all I can add to the subtitle is "Yes!" 100 ways, in alphabetical order, each succinctly explained, each with just a few authoritative references, and each with one page devoted to illustrations of the principle. Absolutely required reading, required owning. Every designer should own it. My students should all read it. What else can I say? Learn more about the authors and the book at their company website, Stuff Creators. Link to book at Amazon.com
Utopian Entrepreneur. Brenda Laurel 2001: MIT Press

— Here is what I said about this book for the book jacket blurb: Brenda Laurel's startup company, Purple Moon, failed, but her travails provided powerful learning experiences This engaging book, written in a style that is uniquely Brenda, tells the story. More important, it shows how to move forward to a positive, humanistic culture, where technology and media provide rich, rewarding experiences.
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Watches tell more than time: product design, information, and the quest for elegance. Coates, D. 2003. New York: McGraw-Hill.

This is a great book about the nature of design. If I were asked to recommend one book on Industrial Design, this is the one I would pick. Watches do indeed tell more than time -- they tell about their owner. Some are practical, sensible, others put beauty above functionality. Some are reflective, costing tens of thousands of dollars and meant to enhance the image of the wearer, both to others and to self. This is a great book that demonstrates the many different facets of design, written by one of the great design educators and practitioners. It's about practical matters, about function, and about emotion. It's about concinnity. What does that mean? Ah, read the book.
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When Things Start to Think. Neil Gershenfeld 1999: Henry Holt and Company

— A book often paired with "The invisible Computer" by reviewers: Gershenfeld is a physicist at the MIT Media lab who develops powerful technology and then uses that technology to create a plethora of clever, creative information appliances -- ones you would never have thought of yourself, but once you see them you say, "yeah, I could use that!"
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Where the Action Is: The foundations of embodied interaction. Paul Dourish 2001: MIT Press

— Yet another book for which I wrote the book jacket blurb, but once again, because I truly believe this to be an important study. As I wrote for the book jacket: A revolution in design and the role of computer science is upon us: Where the Action Is describes the way. In the old days, the focus was upon the technology and "computing," hence the interest in the interface between humans and machines -- us versus them. Not anymore. As Dourish so elegantly explains, design should not be about tasks and their requirements, or applications or computing. Design is really about interaction, with a focus on ubiquity, tangibility, and most of all, shared awareness, intimacy, and emotions. This is a revolution badly needed. It's about time.
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Why Art Cannot Be Taught: A Handbook for Art Students. James Elkins 2001: Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

This is a fascinating book: enjoyable, educational. But if you are a designer, the lessons it teaches are often just the opposite of what you need to know. It isn't relevant to design because it's about art. Art is not supposed to be about order and rationality and things that can be taught, hence the title of this book. Design must be rational. Design has to work, to be understood, to be functional. It is subject to many constraints about time, cost, and the vagaries of the marketplace. All of these are irrelevant to art — moreover, all of these should be irrelevant to art. Art makes statements. Designs work.

I care about design, and I think it can be —and must be —taught. Now, many designers come from art schools, which is why they fail to understand the need for workable, functional, affordable products and design. In act, reading this book made me realize why I fail to understand the attitudes of many classically trained designers.

Elkins teaches at the Chicago School of the Art Institute (which tries hard to have a design department). But it is telling that when Elkins talks about "design," he labels the section "Decoration" (Pages 82-85). ity the poor industrial designer trying to work in an intitution where the parts with all the prestige — architecture and art — think of design as "decoration" (and intesnely dislike "mere decoration."

Artists think design is decoration. Which is why the world of art and the world of design collide. Decoration indeed.

Anyway, I love the book. It is very intelligent and informative. And a lot of fun to read. It expands my appreciation of art. But don't look for any understanding of design. This book is about art, and if there is one thing good design should not be, it is art.

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Why We Buy: The science of shopping. Paco Underhill 1999: Simon & Schuster

— Take human-centered design principles, especially that of ethnographic field study, and apply it to department stores, shops, and any place where people go to buy. The result is a wonderful treasure house of important observations. Underhill's results seem like common sense -- which is how you know they are both correct and very much uncommon.
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