Two Books for Summer Shelves

Two books have jumped out at me so far this year as thought-provoking. Neither is about usability and both will stimulate a better appreciation of the world into which usability fits.

The first is a new classic. "The New Media Reader", edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, is winning fans from those who glance at its contents list. If you don't know who Theodor H. Nelson is and the significance of "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the Indeterminate"; if you are not familiar with the contributions to computing of Bush, Turing, Wiener and Licklider, then this book is even more essential to you, than for the people who just want the keystones of network history all in one place. I've never seen a book so perfectly compiled to save teachers and students illegal photocopying. (Many texts here are now quite hard to find elsewhere.)

Delightfully, it also deals with the other disciplines that have fed the development of new media: Laurel, and Boal on theatre; Borges and "The Garden of Forking Paths"; Haraway, McLuhan, Turkle, and Winograd and Flores theorising about how people use media; Suchman on situated action; Bolter on writing; etc, etc... It's like a party full of your best old friends.

There is also a website with promising support features for the book, linked below.

The other book is entirely different but just as broad in its disciplinary reach. Harvey Molotch has brought a unifying vision to product design and the many elements that come to together to form stuff. "Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come to Be As They Are" (which does not come accompanied by a useful website, but does have good onboard illustrations), provides an overview of factors and detailed specifics in a readable mix.

Talking of a toaster, Molotch comments that: 'It does not just sear bread, but presupposes a pricing mechanism for home amperage, government standards for electric devices, producers and shopkeepers who smell a profit, and people's various sentiments about the safety of electrical current and what a breakfast, nutritionally and socially, ought to be. Any particular toaster also contains the trends in fine and popular art that give it a particular look and texture of operation, including - in many models - a human satisfaction in the sound and sight of the pop-up moment. There are merchandise critics, trade associations, advertising media as well as the prior range of goods within which it must fit - wall outlets for its plugs, bread slicers calibrated to a certain width, and jams that need a crusty base. There is a global system that yields a toaster's raw materials, governments that protect its patents, a labor force to work at the right price, and a dump ready to absorb it in the end.' And that is just the start of an odyssey.

Launching the book last month in London, Molotch (pictured) demonstrated a modified easy-to-clean garlic crusher and described how it came to be made in metal not plastic. He also showed the new stuff - plastic but with moving parts - that had come as a prototype out of a stuff-maker, a tool that interprets a program of an item into the thing itself.

Books, then, that show the future by way of the past...

Associated Link: New Media Reader website

'Internet addiction' linked to Depression
Source: BBC, 9 February 2010
 
There is a strong link between heavy internet use and depression, UK psychologists have said.

Could *You* be more Usable?
Source: UN, 8 February 2010
 
Bet you could.

Stowe Boyd on 'Steampunk' thinking about the Future of Computing
Source: Stowe Boyd's blog via Experientia, 6 February 2010
 
Are established metaphors of user experience holding us back from new ways of structuring our interaction through computers?

Nokia's User Experience Programme
Source: UN, 5 February 2010
 
Nokia has put together a rich and informative website covering the key elements of user experience.

Interfaces magazine: latest issue available now
Source: HCI News Service, 4 February 2010
 
The latest issue of Interfaces is now available in pdf format, free from the Interaction Website.

A Lighter Brigade of Chargers
Source: UN, 3 February 2010
 
Lots of gadgets, one charger. At last.

Mobile Touch Screens could soon Feel the Pressure
Source: MIT Technology Review, 2 February 2010
 
A quantum switch could add pressure sensing to mobile screens.

Usability, Usability, Usability: why the iPad will Succeed
Source: Econsultancy, 1 February 2010
 
The tech critics love it, hate it, love it again, shrug it off. What do usability experts say?

British Airways - at last some good news
Source: Loop11, 30 January 2010
 
In a recent website usability study for the world's leading airlines, the British Airways website proved to be the most user friendly, with Malaysia Airlines and Virgin Atlantic having the lowest user experience rating.

Computation of Emotions in Man and Machine
Source: Royal Society, 29 January 2010
 
Advances in computer technology now allow machines to recognise and express emotions, paving the way for improved human-computer and human-human communications.