- Paperback: 281 pages
- Publisher: The MIT Press; 1 edition (Aug 11 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0262692996
- ISBN-13: 978-0262692991
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 390 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #670,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"A very useful book..." Peta Jellis First Monday Reviews
"It's easy...to get caught up in the author's techno-Utopian vision of a world hotwired to serve its populace." Elizabeth Millard ComputerUser.com
"[Schneiderman} is blessed with an engaging writing style and the ability to make this material interesting and lively." Jessie Thorpe Modbee.com
"This book communicates a kaleidoscopic vision of how technology can be used to empower people in multiple areas of life." Parshu Anantharam The Rational Edge
"This book is an inspiration, a must read." Professor Gavriel Salvendy International Journal of Human Computer Interaction
"This book will change the way you think about web design." WebReference
"This is an eloquently written and visionary book." Pashu Anantharam The Rational Edge
"Who should read (Leonardo's Laptop)? Everyone who cares about mankind, technology, and the future." Gerd Waloszek SAP Design Guild
"It's easy... to get caught up in the author's techno-Utopian vision of a world hotwired to serve its populace." Elizabeth Millard ComputerUser.com
"[Schneiderman] is blessed with an engaging writing style and the ability to make this material interesting and lively." Jessie Thorpe Modbee.com
"This book communicates a kaleidoscopic vision of how technology can be used to empower people... interesting and exciting." Parshu Anantharam The Rational Edge
"... This book is an inspiration, a must read." Gavriel Salvendy International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
"This is an eloquently written and visionary book." Pashu Anantharam The Rational Edge
"Who should read [Leonardo's Laptop]? Everyone who cares about mankind, technology, and the future." Gerd Waloszek SAP Deisgn Guild
"My favourite sentence in this book is 'easy to say, but tough to do.' Ben Shneiderman addresses many of the key issues in creating powerful tools that empower and liberate users. By comparison with a bygone age, and a true polymath (Leonardo), Ben puts his finger on how specialised and compartmentalised our thinking has become. I can¹t help feeling that if everyone were to read this book we would have a lot less technology and interface induced grief. Definitely one for the pocket and desk and not the bookshelf."--Peter Cochrane, Co-Founder, ConceptLabs California
"A lot of people talk about a new wave of innovation driven by human need, rather than by technology, but Ben Shneiderman is actually doing the innovating. This timely book is about the new ways technology will help us mobilise human agency, not replace it."--John Thackara, First Perceptron, Doors of Perception
Book Description
Ben Shneiderman's book dramatically raises computer users' expectations of what they should get from technology. He opens their eyes to new possibilities and invites them to think freshly about future technology. He challenges developers to build products that better support human needs and that are usable at any bandwidth. Shneiderman proposes Leonardo da Vinci as an inspirational muse for the "new computing." He wonders how Leonardo would use a laptop and what applications he would create.Shneiderman shifts the focus from what computers can do to what users can do. A key transformation is to what he calls "universal usability," enabling participation by young and old, novice and expert, able and disabled. This transformation would empower those yearning for literacy or coping with their limitations. Shneiderman proposes new computing applications in education, medicine, business, and government. He envisions a World Wide Med that delivers secure patient histories in local languages at any emergency room and thriving million-person communities for e-commerce and e-government. Raising larger questions about human relationships and society, he explores the computer's potential to support creativity, consensus-seeking, and conflict resolution. Each chapter ends with a Skeptic's Corner that challenges assumptions about trust, privacy, and digital divides.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The old computing was about what computers could do; the new computing is about what users can do. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The old computing was about what computers could do; the new computing is about what users can do. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Demand More From the Computer Industry,
By
This review is from: Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies (Paperback)
The following review was published in the October 2003 issue of the Usability Interface, the quarterly newsletter for the Usability SIG of the STC (Society for Technical Communication). ... Background Anyone who knows Ben Shneiderman and the activities of the Human-Computer Interface Lab (HCIL) would expect a book like Leonardo’s Laptop. Twenty years ago as founding director of HCIL, he was in the avant-garde of bringing together experts in computer science, engineering, psychology, and education to develop computers and their interfaces to better serve human needs. Back then computer interfaces had barely advanced from a row of blinking lights to a flickering green monitor. Why did Shneiderman write Leonardo? He writes, “Old computing is about what computers can do. New computing is about what people can do.” And one thing people can do is to demand better computer interfaces or “Universal Usability.” In Leonardo, Shneiderman empowers users to demand more by giving real, concrete examples of how computers can better support human activities. Shneiderman’s approach For designers he develops a framework for designers to construct technology to support users and their needs — the Activities and Relationships Table (ART). ART is Shneiderman’s approach to relating human activities and relationships. The columns are four activities: collect (information), relate (communicate), create (innovate), and donate (disseminate). The four rows are relationships, each one describing an increasingly large group: self, family and friends, colleagues and neighbors, citizens and markets. Using this framework, human needs are identified first and then technology is developed to meet these needs. Separate chapters on e-business, e-learning, e-commerce, and e-government use this framework to identify needs specific to these areas and then consider how technology can better support the individual and society. The focus is on how technology supports human relationships, how technology enables individuals and groups to be more productive and more creative, and how technology helps diverse groups collaborate within communities or across continents. Each chapter concludes with a thoughtful section labeled, “The Skeptics Corner.” There he completes the discussion of each chapter by voicing the concerns of those who would question his ideas or who see problems with his approach. Shneiderman readily admits that real world solutions are not without potential problems or risk. Here he strengthens his theses by contrasting them with the alternatives. Of particular interest to the Usability Community are chapter subsections on defining universal usability, accommodating diverse users, bridging the gap between what users know and what they need to know, and methods for achieving user-centered design. This book provides a service to the Usability Community by raising public awareness of and knowledge about Usability. ...ISBN 0262194764 hard cover, 0262692996 soft cover
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Reviewer You Can Trust Dislikes This Book,
By
This review is from: Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies (Paperback)
I am running three small internet and software interface venture businesses and avidly read anything anywhere that will in any way help me do a better job. If you put the word "interface" in your work, I will buy it just on the chance it will help me. My businesses are having all sorts of real problems with suppliers and customers and interfaces. We need help. So in that context I bought this book. In about an hour it became apparent that this author has stopped thinking many years ago and now is famous enough to just sprinkle power cuties over his audiences instead of doing real work. I became more and more insulted by this author and his editor and publisher. It is one thing to dress up a title and table of contents wording to slant something falsely so it will look like something else and sell well--nearly all editors and publishers do this. However, it is something else to take casual ramblings and rantings of an old man who has not seen a trench much less been in one for a decade or more, it appears. and publish them just because marketing can get enough suckers to pull in some money for retirment. This book is merely written to make money for its publisher and author and has no sincere intent to enlighten anyone about anything, as far as I can see. Nothing in it pertains to computer interface work in any serious sense. Each chapter expresses rage at some terrible aspect of current software. Rage is something I understand but I have it already and do not need more of it. I need solutions and ideas, preferably with experimental data backing some of them up. This book is just rage and out of date rage at that. I am sorry because this author ten years ago was a true pioneer and his early academic papers helped me a lot. It is sad to see commercial success ruin a good mind.
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Outstanding book on Human Beings and Computers,
By Michael Burks (Morrisville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies (Paperback)
Ben Shneiderman has written a wonderful book about computers and what human beings should expect to be able to use them for. He talks about "user centered" computer and how everyone should be able to use computers to do a better job. By everyone he means everyone, no matter who you are, disabled or not.He goes into great detail about how the computer should be used and how it should be built to suit the user, not the user changing to suit the way the computer is built. This is the way it should and must be. People should not serve computers, computers should serve the needs of the human population no matter who 0r where they are. He includes a great list of references and his examples of how the new computing should work are outstanding. He makes his case well with detailed examples and commentaries on the subject. This books is a must buy for all of us!
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