On using Leonardo's Laptop as a class text:

"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

"Ben Schneiderman's book, Leonardo's Laptop, was a required text in a Cyberspace, Culture and Society course I taught this summer. The course was a combined upper level undergraduate and graduate seminar class that included students from a wide range of academic disciplines: English, sociology, psychology, anthropology, computer science, information systems, philosophy, interdisciplinary studies, Language, Literacy and Culture, and Policy Science. The students overwhelmingly indicated that the book was excellent: readable, inspiring, and thought provoking.

Leonardo's Laptop urges users to promote better design by getting 'angry about the poor quality of user interfaces and the underlying infrastructure' and to think big about the ways computers could "support creativity, consensus-seeking and conflict resolution." Shneiderman urges designers to build technology guided by the principle of universal usability to insures that all types of people, young, old, novices, experts, disabled, will be able to use technology to enhance their lives.

Chapters dealing with e-learning, e-commerce, e-health, and e-government suggest creative ways that technology can support humans as they seek to deal with pressing social issues. This book creatively explores a topic that, all too often, is dealt with in jargon and technical terminology that is not accessible to a wide audience and narrowly frames the discussion of technology and its effects. The book promoted interesting discussion between technical and non-technical students about the effects of technology on societies around the world. The students especially liked the 'collect, relate, create, donate framework' that Schneiderman so skillfully uses to illustrate how technology can empower and liberate users."
--Diane Maloney-Krichmar, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Reviews from experts in HCI and usability:

"Shneiderman's book presents an optimistic vision of the use of computing technology and conceptualizes a "new computing" that empowers people and supports 'what people want to do.' Who should read it? Everyone who cares about mankind, technology, and the future."
--Gerd Waloszek, SAP Design Guild (read his full review)

"Hurrah for Ben Shneiderman. The old computing was about technology, the new is about people. Easy to say, difficult to do. Shneiderman has long argued that people do come first: Now he tells how. Leonardo's Laptop is required reading for those who wish to use technology for the benefit of people."
--Donald A. Norman, Department of Computer Science, Northwestern University, and Nielsen Norman Group; author of The Invisible Computer

"My favourite sentence in this book is 'easy to say, but tough to do.' Ben Shneiderman addresses many of the key issues in creating powerful tools that empower and liberate users. By comparison with a bygone age, and a true polymath (Leonardo), Ben puts his finger on how specialized and compartmentalized our thinking has become. I can't help feeling that if everyone were to read this book we would have a lot less technology- and interface-induced grief. Definitely one for the pocket and desk and not the bookshelf."
--Peter Cochrane, Co-Founder, ConceptLabs California

"A lot of people talk about a new wave of innovation driven by human need rather than by technology, but Ben Shneiderman is actually doing the innovating. This timely book is about the new ways technology will help us mobilise human agency, not replace it."
--John Thackara, First Perceptron, Doors of Perception