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About Our Core Readings

Every discipline has a few key texts, its Canon if you will, which embody the motivating concerns, basic understandings, and research agendas that drive its future development. These critical texts invarably provide the best entry points into its literature.

So if you only have time to read a few books about End User Computing, these are the most important ones to start with!

Leonardo's Laptop

Leonardo's Laptop

Leonardo's Laptop

Ben Shneiderman

MIT Press, 2002

ISBN: 0262194767

Written by the world famous Professor Ben Shneiderman -- one of The IEUC's Advisory Board Members -- whose work in Human-Computer Interaction has shaped the very landscape of personal computing, this text proposed a New Computing and is remarkably accessible to the non-technical reader while remaining a treasure trove for the dedicated researcher.

Keywords: Electronic data processing. Human-computer interaction. Technological forecasting.

Machine Beauty

Machine Beauty

Machine Beauty

David Hillel Gelernter

Basic Books, 1997

ISBN: 0465045162

In "Machine Beauty", David Gelernter offers more alternatives to today's dominant interface paradigms and highlights the role that our choice of metaphors can play in limiting our design options.

Keywords: Human-computer interaction. Computer software Human factors. Computer engineering.

Persuasive Technology

Persuasive Technology

Persuasive Technology

B. J. Fogg

Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2003

ISBN: 1558606432

Dr. Fogg breaks new ground by launching the discipline of Captology in this landmark book. Captology is the study of computers as persuasive tools and is sure to develop into a critical thinking skill that will be needed by End Users and developers alike.

Keywords: Persuasion (Psychology) Computer programs. Human-computer interaction.

Re-Imagine!

Re-Imagine!

Re-Imagine!

Thomas J. Peters

Dorling Kindersley, 2003

ISBN: 078949647X

Although the book's topography can be a bit hard on the eyes in spots and some of its open questions about the long term implications of AI have been too heavily influenced by the dubious doomsday scenarios popularized by some computer scientists, these are relatively minor quibbles with an incredibly timely, well written, and impeccably researched work. Tom Peters is one of the most prolific and important management writers of our age whose bold thinking strikes at the very foundations of the status quo "Worse is Better" mind set.

If you are at all worried about what you need to do to stay competitive in the job market despite the continual upheavals made possible by advances in End User Computing, this book is a must read.

Keywords: Management. Organizational change Management. Organizational effectiveness.

The Humane Interface

The Humane Interface

The Humane Interface

Jef Raskin

Addison Wesley, 2000

ISBN: 0201379376

The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin, credited as the father of the Apple Macintosh and Canon Cat, deconstructs the failings of today's User Interfaces and forces the reader to recognize that the tried and true set of assumptions that underly today's Desktop Metaphor is only one of a number of possible alternatives. This book will teach you the skills you need to look at interface design with a critical eye.

Keywords: Human-computer interaction. User interfaces (Computer systems)

The Software Conspiracy

The Software Conspiracy

The Software Conspiracy

Mark Minasi

McGraw-Hill, 2000

ISBN: 0071348069

Mark Minasi's "Software Conspiracy" is a well reasoned and passionate call for End Users to demand higher quality and play a proactive role in bringing about alternative to badly designed software products.

Keywords: Computer software Quality control. Manufactures Defects.

The Unfinished Revolution

The Unfinished Revolution

The Unfinished Revolution

Michael L. Dertouzos

HarperCollins, 2001

ISBN: 0066620678

Written by the late Michael Dertouzos of the MIT AI Lab balances the humanist approach of Leonard's Laptop with a more prescriptive approach based on the application of Artificial Intelligence related technologies to the problem of developing a Human-Centric Computing.

Keywords: Human-computer interaction. User interfaces (Computer systems)

The Unix Philosophy

The Unix Philosophy

The Unix Philosophy

Mike Gancarz

Digital Press, 1995

ISBN: 1555581234

Written by one of the developers of the X Window System, this fascinating books explains "The UNIX Philosophy" - a belief system that has given us much of today's technology the character that it has. This understanding empowers us to choose a different path without the risk of repeating past mistakes.

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