Feature: Shneiderman demands Computing Renaissance

Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland professor of computer science and founder of the HCI Lab, has been using Leonardo’s thinking about the importance of the eye in his information visualisation work for years. He says wrily that he read a book recently showing how Leonardo da Vinci has been appropriated and adapted for every century since his birth, 550 years ago in April just past. Shneiderman is laying early claim to the honour of adapting him for the 21st century.

In November 2000, he enlivened a meeting of the Greater Boston SIGCHI by putting on clothing 'such as Leonardo da Vinci might have worn' and talking about what lessons we might learn from the painter.

Now, two years on, his book "Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies" has just been released and he is keen to share the insights that working on it has given him.

So last week, he addressed a mixed audience of designers, HCI researchers, usability professionals, technology commentators and educationalists at Gresham College in London, at an event organised by Design Agenda and Spiked. After a short solo presentation, the evening took the form of an 'in conversation' with UN's Nico Macdonald, abetted by occasional asides from Gresham professor of Geometry, Harold Thimbleby. Then Shneiderman took questions from all sides.

I cannot do justice here to the range of material that Shneiderman is covering in the book. Like Leonardo, he is not restricting himself to one field but combining the detail of science with an overview of humanity, its needs, its potential to create - what he referred to as the renaissance man's emphasis on 'technological advances with human values, merging the visionary with the practical.' The book covers education, democracy and healthcare; in essence, looking at how technology can contribute to quality of life.

His goal is systems that are usable, universal (Leonardo showed sympathy for the underprivileged, Shneiderman asserts) and useful: 'The old computing was about what computers can do; the new computing is about what users can do. Successful technologies are those that are in harmony with users' needs.' And to be in harmony with human needs is a big business opportunity, he suggests.

He reported on work performed at the HCIL in Maryland, revealing that 45-50% of time spent on a computer is not productive. He said that society was too trusting of industry to do the best it can and cited evidence from American history that companies have to be shamed sometimes into providing safe and effective goods. As Thimbleby commented, Shneiderman had come out to get us 'keyed up to complain' as citizens, users and as professionals.

He also introduced a new framework for thinking about activities:
· Collect
· Relate
· Create
· Donate
This model appears frequently in his book as a way of categorising different aspects of the processes we use computers for.

Macdonald asked whether using the conceit of Leonardo was not a bit 'high-falluting'. Shneiderman replied that he was using it to suggest creativity and open a discussion about how to support it better. He wanted people empowered to create and share, to enable entrepreneurship. But he added: 'At a more fundamental level, my laptop won't work. There are 21 variations of pdf [portable document format, supposedly a single standard]... plug-ins cause a lot of crashes. We should press for supplier responsibility.'

Was the HCI debate won? 'Were we pushing at an open door?' Macdonald asked.

'There are 142 usability experts at Microsoft, which is less than 1% of the workforce,' countered Shneiderman, 'Shouldn't that be higher?' He suggested that as our dependence on computer technology has grown, so have our expectations, but not the quality of service from our technology. 'There is still a lot to be done and it isn't all dissemination.'

He also questioned the metrics by which success is being reviewed: 'You become what you measure.' He juxtaposed measuring the number of computers in a classroom with measuring the number of emails written in a foreign language and sent to a student in another country.

Looking at sticking points, he observed that it was the social problem of getting medics to agree standards for patient records, for instance, that was holding up work on pooling internationally our medical resources.

Questions from the audience seemed to centre round the question of whether designing for human needs was appropriate or not. Shneiderman commented that he was being asked grand philosophical questions of which there were never usually enough and he was pleased to be meeting them here. Were we being selfish in aiming for self actualisation with computers? Do we need computer technology to meet fundamental social needs? Had corrosive pessimism replaced the naïve optimism of the early computer years? Was design about human needs or making money? Had Shneiderman gone far enough in demanding empowerment? In stimulating innovation?

There was not time enough to take any of these questions very far and much of the questioning revealed that the Spiked audience differed in its underlying philosophy from the humanism of Shneiderman and, by extension, Leonardo as he has been made to serve in his present incarnation.

But perhaps the most telling moment was when the presentation was interrupted by a dialog box that popped up obscuring most of the screen behind Shneiderman saying 'No Help Available'; quickly to be followed by another two, smaller, messages warning of a low battery (the machine was plugged into the mains, or so we thought). Shneiderman assured us they were nothing to do with the show. Nonetheless, they made his point beautifully.

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