Human Computer-Interaction

Human Computer-Interaction

A. Dix, J. Finlay, G. Abowd and R. BealePrentice Hall1998638 pp.ISBN 0-13-239864-8£25.95 Hardcover

Aimed to support undergraduate and postgraduate courses, this well written and highly readable book provides a multi-disciplinary approach to human-computer interaction. The 16 chapters are divided into three main parts from the foundations of human-computer interaction to design practice and advanced topics.

Part 1 includes introductory chapters covering the human user and human psychology, computer technology and the nature of interactive processes between them. Part 2 promotes the purposeful design of more usable interactive systems and examines the key topics of human-computer interaction. This includes a comprehensive range of models to support interface design covering task analysis, dialogue design,cognitive models and software engineering mutations. Also addressed are implementation support, evaluation techniques and help and documentation.

The advanced topics covered in Part 3 address various application areas including groupware,computer supported co-operative work (CSCW), multi-sensory systems, multimedia and the World Wide Web.

A Web site accompanies the book and includes the rest of the worked answers to questions found in the text,all OHP masters and a bullet-point outline of the entire book. The site can be found at http://www.hiraeth. com/books/hci/ and also contains the full bibliography, indexing, demos and other useful links.