STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

Book Review
Leonardo’s Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies

Reviewed by Allen Rotz, Usability SIG Manager, Washington, DC Chapter

Anyone who knows Ben Shneiderman and the activities of the Human Computer Interface Lab (HCIL) would expect he would produce a book like Leonardo’s Laptop. Twenty years ago as founding director of HCIL, Shneiderman was in the avant-garde of bringing together experts in computer science, engineering, psychology, and education to develop computers and their interfaces to better serve human needs.

Why did Shneiderman write Leonardo?

Having long been at the forefront of interface design among design professionals and all the work about what is good and what is bad, Shneiderman sensed a need for something else to take things to the next level. That professionals doing their best to promote and evangelize was not enough. It was involvement of the masses that would really break the chains that are restrained development and implementation of what is possible with computing and interfaces.

He writes, "Old computing is about what computers can do. New computing is about what people can do." And one thing people can do is to demand better computer interfaces or "Universal Usability." In Leonardo, Shneiderman empowers users to demand more by giving real, concrete examples of how computers can better support human activities.

Shneiderman’s approach

Shneiderman develops a framework for designers to construct technology to support users and their needs. This framework is a four-row, four-column matrix he calls the Activities and Relationships Table (ART). ART is Shneiderman’s approach to relating human activities and relationships. The columns are four activities: collect (information), relate (communicate), create (innovate), and donate (disseminate). The four rows are relationships, each one describing an increasingly large group: self, family and friends, colleagues and neighbors, citizens and markets. By using this framework, human needs are identified first and then technology is developed to meet these needs.

In separate chapters on e-business, e-learning, e-commerce, and e-government, this framework is used to identify needs specific to these areas and to begin to consider how technology can better support the individual and society.

The focus is on how technology can support human relationships, how technology can enable individuals and groups to be more productive and more creative, and how technology can help diverse groups collaborate within communities or across continents.

Each chapter concludes with a thoughtful section labeled, "The Skeptics Corner." Where Shneiderman completes the discussion by voicing the concerns of those who would question his ideas or who see problems with his approach. Shneiderman readily admits that real world solutions are not without potential problems or risk. Here he strengthens his theses by contrasting them with the alternatives.

Of particular interest to the usability community is his chapter subsections on defining universal usability, accommodating diverse users, bridging the gap between what users know and what they need to know, and methods for achieving user-centered design among other usability-related issues. This book provides a service to the usability community by raising public awareness of and knowledge about usability.

Some have criticized Leonardo’s Laptop as suffering from too many dreams of too large a scope without describing a road to get there. To provide such a description would be too limiting and too tied to a specific technology. To specifically describe the road would require a linkage to specific tactics and technologies. Leonardo’s Laptop is meant to be a guide in getting from the present to our dreams. The vision of our dreams is likely to change, influenced by the technology of the moment that is available to get us there. Shneiderman provides a framework that will work with changing technology to dynamically define the goal, describe the direction we need to travel, and provide a framework to use in building the road to our dreams. Providing a framework to define where we want to go allows us to use newly emerging technologies to reevaluate the path to get to where we want to be.

For other book reviews that provide more analysis of its content and interviews with the author, go to the publisher’s web site http://mitpress.mit.edu/main/feature/leonardoslaptop/interviews.html