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Leonardo's Laptop
Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies
Ben Shneiderman
Ben Shneiderman's book dramatically raises computer users' expectations of what they should get from technology. He opens their eyes to new possibilities and invites them to think freshly about future technology. He challenges developers to build products that better support human needs and that are usable at any bandwidth. Shneiderman proposes Leonardo da Vinci as an inspirational muse for the "new computing." He wonders how Leonardo would use a laptop and what applications he would create.
Shneiderman shifts the focus from what computers can do to what users can do. A key transformation is to what he calls "universal usability," enabling participation by young and old, novice and expert, able and disabled. This transformation would empower those yearning for literacy or coping with their limitations. Shneiderman proposes new computing applications in education, medicine, business, and government. He envisions a World Wide Med that delivers secure patient histories in local languages at any emergency room and thriving million-person communities for e-commerce and e-government. Raising larger questions about human relationships and society, he explores the computer's potential to support creativity, consensus-seeking, and conflict resolution. Each chapter ends with a Skeptic's Corner that challenges assumptions about trust, privacy, and digital divides.
About the Author
Ben Shneiderman is Professor of Computer Science and Founding Director (1983–2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park.
| "It's easy...to get caught up in the author's techno-Utopian vision of a world hotwired to serve its populace."
—Elizabeth Millard, ComputerUser.com "A very useful book..."
—Peta Jellis, First Monday Reviews "Who should read (Leonardo's Laptop)? Everyone who cares about mankind, technology, and the future."
—Gerd Waloszek, SAP Design Guild View All Reviews |
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| "Questions about the relationship between technology and culture may be more important than ever. Ben Shneiderman's conviction that da Vinci's ideas about art and technique remain relevant may bring us an important step or two closer to useful answers about the roles that we want computers in play in our lives."
The course in which I've used Leonardo's Laptop is called "LIS 2000: Understanding Information." ...It is designed as an introduction to the graduate program in library and information science at Pittsburgh, and attempts to look at a series of issues that affect the environment for scholarly publishing, information exchange, information retrieval, etc. The official course description is as follows: "Issues and problems arising from interrelationships among information and individuals, society, organizations and systems, and information that the information professions address."
—Christinger Tomer, University of Pittsburgh
View All Endorsements |
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| 2003 IEEE-USAB Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding of the Profession.
Selected as a Finalist in the category of Computer/Internet in the 2002 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs) presented by Independent Publisher Magazine
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