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Leonardo's Laptop
Book

Leonardo's Laptop

Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies

MIT Press, 2002
First Edition: 2002 plus...

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Editorial Rating

7

Recommendation

Leonardo da Vinci put people first in both engineering and art, noting that “work must commence with the conception of man.” Unfortunately, many software and hardware engineers treat the user as an annoying afterthought. Ben Shneiderman is different. Taking Leonardo as his muse, and providing a light sprinkling of biographical facts about the ultimate Renaissance Man, Shneiderman presents a simple, compelling framework for understanding the way that people want to work with information technology. This award-winning book offers a crash course in user-centered design. getAbstract recommends it to anyone who works with software, hardware or Web applications (and who doesn’t these days?). Shneiderman describes what you should demand from technology providers. If Leonardo had been a computer scientist, this is the sort of book he would have written. Here’s to Renaissance 2.0.

Take-Aways

  • Much, if not most, computing technology is poorly designed and implemented.
  • Currently, the technology comes first; the user is an afterthought.
  • Computing must start and end with the user.

About the Author

Ben Shneiderman is professor of computer science and founding director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park.