KEY FEATURES:
* This truly integrated approach to HCI provides students with background information from psychology, sociology, anthropology, information systems and computer science
* Provides principles and skills for designing any technology through the use of many interesting and state of the art examples
* The author supported, highly interactive Web Site provides resources that allow students to collaborate on experiments, participate in design competitions, collaborate on design, find resources and communicate with others
* The accompanying Web Site also features examples, step-by-step exercises and templates for questionnaires

CONTENTS:
Preface
1. What is interaction design?
Interview with Gitta Saloman
2. Understanding and conceptualizing interaction
Interview with Terry Winograd
3. Understanding users
4. Understanding and designing for collaboration and communication
Interview with Abigail Sellen
5. Understanding how interfaces affect users
6. The process of interaction design
Interview with Gillian Crampton Smith
7. Identifying needs and establishing requirements
Interview with Suzanne Robertson
8. Design, prototyping and construction
9. User-centered approaches to interaction design
Interview with Karen Holtzblatt
10. Introducing evaluation
11. A framework for evaluation
12. Observing users
Interview with Sara Bly
13. Asking users and experts
Interview with Jakob Nielsen
14. Testing and modeling users
Interview with Ben Shneiderman
15. Doing design and evaluation in the real world: communicators and advisory systems
Epilogue
Glossary

Beyond Interaction Design is an important book for designing effective and capable interfaces to software applications.

Interaction Design is a meat and potatoes book about HCI. Rather than focusing on the software that drives the application, the book analyzes how users actually interact with the system. This interaction is what ultimately will determine whether a system is successful or unproductive.

The book provides a comprehensive look at the entire set of requirements involved with design. The authors show that there is much more to systems design than end-user requirements and CGI scripts. Effective HCI is a multi-disciplinary area including psychology, sociology, anthropology, information systems, and computer science.

The authors write that their book is called "Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction" because it is concerned with the broader scope of issues, topics, and paradigms than has been traditionally written in other books. The book notes that there has never been a greater need for interactions designers and usability engineers to develop current and next-generation interaction technologies. To be successful in the interface design game, programmers need a mixed set of skills, which is not an easy task.

Interaction Design comprises 15 densely packed chapters that integrate all of the various cognitive, social, and other issues that are germane to interaction design. Chapter 1 provides an overview of what makes for good and bad design. Chapter 3 gets into the psychological aspect of HCI and looks at cognition and how users interact with the systems they implement. None of the book makes for easy reading, as the topics at hand are often multifaceted and complex. Chapter 6 deals with the process of interaction design and for the most part ends the psychological approach, while Chapters 7 through 10 deal with the actual design of the system.

The book has a number of real-world case studies, and also includes interviews with various authorities on HCI. However, it does not get into specific technologies (Solaris, Linux, etc.). Also, each chapter concludes with a number of references, which can be used as a launching pad for more information.

I highly recommend Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction for anyone who is serious about interface design. Your users will appreciate it.


Excellent Course Text for HCI students   September 4, 2003
Anthony Faiola (IUPUI, HCI Grad Program, Indianapolis, Indiana USA)
14 out of 16 found this review helpful

The breath and depth of this text truly embodies the necessary content for beginning HCI students in an undergraduate and graduate program. I've successfully used this text every semester with my students since its inception. The author's perspective of the discipline accurately reflects an increasing trend in HCI education that places less emphasis on computing and more on designing products to enhance human communication based on the social sciences. It is organized to provide an instructor a way to pick and choose selected chapters or proceed sequentially. Each chapter is multi-dimensional in its approach to provide an array of content that includes both theory and practice. I highly recommend it.


The best text we have for this area.   September 3, 2003
Toni Robertson (Paddington, NSW Australia)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

I have successfully used this book as the major text in both undergraduate and post graduate HCI and Interaction Design subjects. I am grateful that is available as it is by far the best text available for these subjects. It is particularly strong on the social and contextual issues that are so fundamental to the design of robust and usable technology and are often so difficult to convey to students who lack real design experience.

It is well organised, very clearly written and provides many useful examples and practical exercises. These are all designed to make some very complex material accessible to readers whatever their knowledge of the field. I have also used some of the support material that is available for those teaching from this text. It is designed in such a way that it can be easily incorporated into existing course material and has saved me a lot of time!


Excellent Book   June 22, 2008
Irene Carrillo (Maracay, Venezuela)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I am using this book for a matter in my master degree; I think the book is excellent; it helped me so much in the understanding of the computer human design.


loving every bit of it   August 29, 2008
Q. G. H. Berk (the Hague, Holland)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I really like this book because to me it seems to have an air of 'this is the way we see it, but if you think this or that is better by all means do that'. I find a lot of authors on the subject give you 'their' view on thing whereas Sharp, Rogers & Preece sort of seem to show you what's out there and what you can do with it and for the rest you decide what it is you think is best for you.

Very extensive, great book covering loads of industries where interaction designers do their work (or should!).

If I'd have found this book sooner, there would be quite a few I would have left on the bookshelf.