HCI Text Books Recommendations

This report, by Dr. Ping Zhang, is the summary of the recommendations from the HCI community on HCI textbooks and is organized into the following sections:

I. interesting web sites people listed,
II. a summary of the specific recommendations, and
III. the original comments people made.

I. Interesting web sites

• http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~perlman/readings.html
  
• http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~perlman/preece.html
  
• http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/Courses/481/
  
• http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/winograd/book.html
  

II. Summary of specific recommendations

The number in () means number of times recommended.

_	Author(s)	Title	Publisher
(9)	Preece,J. et al.	Human-computer interaction	Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., MA, 1994
(4)	Ronald M. Baecker, Jonathan Grudin, William A. S. Buxton & Saul Greenberg (eds)	Readings in Computers and Human Interaction: Toward the Year 2000, 2nd edition	Morgan Kaufmann, 1995
(3)	Shneiderman,B.	Designing the user interface: Strategies for effective human-computer interaction, 2nd edition	Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,Inc.,Reading, MA, 1992
(2)	Donald Norman	Design of Everyday things	Basic Books 1989
(1)	Apple Computer Corp.	Macintosh human interface guidelines	Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,Inc., Reading, MA , 1992
(1)	Andrew Dillon	Designing Usable Eletronic Text	Taylor and Francis, 1994
(1)	Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory Abowd & Russell Beale.	Human-Computer Interaction.	Hillsdale, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. ISBN 0-13-458266-7
(1)	Hix, Deborah, & Hartson, H. Rex.	Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Product & Process.	New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993.
(1)	Laurel, B. (ed.)	The art of human-computer interface design	Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Reading MA, 1990
(1)	Mantovani	New Communication Environments from Everyday to Virtual	Francis & Taylor, London 1996
(1)	Mayhew, Deborah J.	Principles and Guidelines in Software User Interface Design	Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1992.
(1)	Newman, & Lamming,	Interactive System Design	Addison Wesley
(1)	Gary Perlman, Georgia K. Green, & Michael S. Wogalter (Eds.)	Human Factors Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction: Selections from Proceedings of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meetings 1983-1994.	Santa Monica, CA: HFES, 1995. ISBN 0-945289-05-7.
(1)	Zetie	Practical User Interface Design
(1)	Winograd, Terry, et al. (eds)	Bringing Design to Software	Addison-Wesley, 1996
(1)	Scott McCloud	Understanding Comics	Kitchen Sink Press, 1993

III. Original comments

(after eliminating the identities of the senders)

• "I recommend the Preece et al HCI book. See review in: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~perlman/preece.html ..."

• "I have used Preece et al (1995) Human Computer Interaction - Addison Wesley - and have given up on it as it is more aimed at undergrads and is very simplistic in crucial places. I now recommend REadings In HCI- toward the year 2000, as well as lots of supplementary papers and books e.g., Dillon's Designing Usable Eletronic Text, (Taylor and Francis, 1994) and Norman's Design of Everyday things (Basic Books 1989)"

• "I teach an HCI course, but in recent years I've narrowed it to focus mostly on interface design, so it isn't as broad as yours. For my purpose, I'm very happy with Norman's "Design of Everyday Things" and Zetie's "Practical User Interface Design". I supplement those with some related articles out of Comms of the ACM and interactions magazine. For a very broad course, a couple of years ago, I used Jeny Preece's (et al.) "Human-Computer Interaction." It gives very broad coverage to the field."

• "HCI plays a major role in my dissertation research and I have been "collecting" information about HCI for several years - even before I started my doctoral program. Here are a few of the books I have found both informative and useful (user-friendly?).

  1. Laurel, B. (ed.),(1990),The art of human-computer interface design,Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Reading MA

  2. Powell, J.E.,(1990), Design user interfaces, Microtrend Books-Slawson Communications Inc.,San Marcos, CA

  3. Apple Computer Corp,(1992), Macintosh human interface guidelines,Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,Inc., Reading, MA

  4. Tognazzini,B.,(1992), Tog on interface, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.,Reading, MA

  5. Microsoft Corporation, (1987,1992), The windows interface: An application design guide,Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA

  6. Shneiderman,B.,(1992),Designing the user interface: Strategies for effective human-computer interaction (second Edition),Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,Inc.,Reading, MA

  7. Minasi,M.,(1994),Secrets of effective GUI design,Sybex,Inc., Alameda, CA

  8. Preece,J. et al, (1994),Human-computer interaction, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Reading, MA

  9. Apple Computer, Inc., (1987), Apple human interface guidelines: The Apple desktop interface, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Reading, MA

  Of the listed books I personally feel that Schneiderman (#6), Preece (#8), or Laurel (#1) along with "Macintosh Human INterface Guidelines" (#3) would be a good choice.

• "I've used the Prentice Hall Dix et al book, it has a solutions manual as well which is useful. Then this year I tried the Preece text from Addison-Wesley - again some nice features but perhaps for my students not enough on the software/hardware side of the HCI equation. There is no solutions manual or other help for this one. I am awaiting the results of the student feedback to know how it went - I think not all students bought it because of the dominance in the early chapters on the human side of HCI."

• "What background will students have coming into the course, and what would you like your students to get out of the course? Are you planning to give an overview of HCI to students from a different discipline, or teach students with an already existing background in Human Factors?

  Either way, the following may be useful:

  Human Factors Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction ed. Gar Perlman et al. ISBN 0-945289-05-7

  Preece, J. et al. (1994). Human-Computer Interaction. Addison Wesley

  or look at some books from Ben Schneiderman"

• "Many people like (the following) textbook ... Human Computer Interaction, Preece, J. et al. (1994) Addision Wesley."

• "If I can offer my advice, I believe that for graduate level the book

  Human Computer Interaction

  edited by (Yvonne Rogers et al.) eds 1994 Wiley is the most complete and competent book I have seen. It is practical, concrete and well theoretically grounded. And this one would have to be completed with Mantovani 's Book titled New Communication Environments from Everyday to Virtual (Francis & Taylor, London 1996) it is a concise but dense book with up to date analysis of the literature that faces in a modern and useful way the crucial points of HCI."

• "... Some books you might want to look at are:

  Shneiderman, B. (1992). Designing the user interface (2nd ed.) Reading MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0 201 57286 0 (This is my top choice

  Preece, J., et al (1994) Human Computer Interaction. Workingham, England: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0 201 62769 8

  Braecker, R, et al (1995). Readings in human computer interaction. San Francisco, CA. ISBN 1 55860 246 1"

• "I have been teaching a course on User Interface Design and have found that following texts to be quite good:

  Hix, Deborah, & Hartson, H. Rex. Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Product & Process. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993.

  Mayhew, Deborah J. Principles and Guidelines in Software User Interface Design. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1992."

• "I teach a course in HCI at both grad and undergrad level... Baecker, R., Grudin, J., Buxton, W., and Greenberg, S. (1995). Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000. 2nd Edition, Morgan-Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA, 950 pages.

  I use it because it lets me pick and chose the material for my course...

  Gary Perlamn has reviewed several books as well. You can find his page by doing a search on the web..."

• "There are some excellent books out at the moment. The most popular one in the field is now becoming Jenny Preece's new book on Human-Computer Interaction by Addison Wesley. It really covers the entire field. HOWEVER, if you are teaching a higher level course, you might want to consider the new Newman and Lamming book on Interactive System Design by Addison Wesley....."

• "... I wanted to point out (a) recent book, Bringing Design to Software http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/winograd/book.html

• "Let me add this book

  Understanding Comics
  Scott McCloud

  This is a book that deals with visual thinking, representation and symbols in a very special way. I found it on one HCI reading list as "highly recommended", and it is certainly one of the most impressive books I've ever read."