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The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity

The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity

List Price: $35.00
Your Price: $35.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: cogent and constructive
Review: "The Trouble with Computers" is an eye-opening book, clearly giving a case for the thesis: Computers are difficult to use because insufficient effort is made to test programs for usability (i.e. how easy a program is for a human to use, not just whether it performs technically as expected by the programmers). Great improvements can be made with even modest testing with typical users.

He gives wonderful examples of computers' being less useful than they could be. One of my favorites: After hundreds or thousands of years, humanity learned to replace inefficient-to-read scrolls with easily-turned pages. When computers arrived, we went back to scrolling.

His assertion that computers hindered productivity growth is bound to irritate people and garner some negative reviews. However, this book is a very constructive one--he states and bolsters this surprising assertion and then tells us what we can do to improve the situation. Having worked in technical support for years, a branch of the booming high-tech economy which owes its existence to the difficulty of using computers, I find it amusing that anyone would dispute the thesis that computers could be made much easier to use. I highly recommend this book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: cogent and constructive
Review: "The Trouble with Computers" is an eye-opening book, clearly giving a case for the thesis: Computers are difficult to use because insufficient effort is made to test programs for usability (i.e. how easy a program is for a human to use, not just whether it performs technically as expected by the programmers). Great improvements can be made with even modest testing with typical users.

He gives wonderful examples of computers' being less useful than they could be. One of my favorites: After hundreds or thousands of years, humanity learned to replace inefficient-to-read scrolls with easily-turned pages. When computers arrived, we went back to scrolling.

His assertion that computers hindered productivity growth is bound to irritate people and garner some negative reviews. However, this book is a very constructive one--he states and bolsters this surprising assertion and then tells us what we can do to improve the situation. Having worked in technical support for years, a branch of the booming high-tech economy which owes its existence to the difficulty of using computers, I find it amusing that anyone would dispute the thesis that computers could be made much easier to use. I highly recommend this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Still true today
Review: Despite the claims of other reviewers, the evidence that the situation described in Landauer's book has improved since the surge in the internet and its sub-technologies (e.g., the Web) is absent. I'd refer the interested reader to a recent article in the New Yorker entitled "The Productivity Mirage" (J. Cassidy) to see some interesting numbers that bear on this question.

It's not that IT investment doesn't result in productivity gains for some individuals, but that there's little evidence that it does much for most organizations as a whole. This is a point critics often miss, because most critics are computer-savvy and subjectively feel like they're more productive as a result of their computer use.

Most of the problems outlined by Landauer still plague current information systems. This book is a must-read for anyone serious about user interface or IT productivity.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a book to give away
Review: I read this book for the first time 5 years ago. I worked at a telecom company and everything he wrote on the paradox of IT investments not returning any money is 100 % true. So I bought 20 copies of the book and gave them to upper management. Needless to say it didn't really help.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must read for any developer or IS person
Review: In a relatively short book, Mr. Landauer has brought to focus much of the ill-conceived notions of the computer industry as well as it's failings. For anyone who reads "trade rags" and wonders if it is at all realistic, one MUST read this book.

It's filled with real-world examples, and true scientific research that brings home the points made in the book.

To avoid the same pitfalls in your projects you should see what everyone else had done wrong

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Thesis about computers and productivity quickly became false
Review: Landauer has good credentials to be talking about what's wrong with computers. He talks about the two main phases in computer history: 1)The 50s and 60s where bookkeepers were replaced in great numbers and 2) The 70s and 80s when word processors and spreadsheets came of age. He says that the productivity improvements in the first phase are obvious, but the results from the 2nd are dubious in terms of economic gain. He does point to a few big recent successes such as the communications industry. This book came out just before the Web became big, however. Landauer describes software testing methods in detail and believes better testing could make the difference in current software user productivity. He includes lots of memorable statements, at least to programmer types. He mentions that nowadays many people do things with computers simply because they can, not because it makes sense. He also points out how people pump money into PCs getting them to do things badly, which are easy and cheap to do by other means, just because they are so amazed a computer can do them.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Debunks the myth that computers always improve things.
Review: Landauer has good credentials to be talking about what's wrong with computers. He talks about the two main phases in computer history: 1)The 50s and 60s where bookkeepers were replaced in great numbers and 2) The 70s and 80s when word processors and spreadsheets came of age. He says that the productivity improvements in the first phase are obvious, but the results from the 2nd are dubious in terms of economic gain. He does point to a few big recent successes such as the communications industry. This book came out just before the Web became big, however. Landauer describes software testing methods in detail and believes better testing could make the difference in current software user productivity. He includes lots of memorable statements, at least to programmer types. He mentions that nowadays many people do things with computers simply because they can, not because it makes sense. He also points out how people pump money into PCs getting them to do things badly, which are easy and cheap to do by other means, just because they are so amazed a computer can do them.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: an anecdotal collection, no "true scientific research" here
Review: One of the first clarions of the so-called computer "Productivity Paradox", this report is often cited by other unsubstantiated, anecdotal "studies". But there is no "true scientific research" here. Written in 1994 (or '93), published in 1995 (with the fourth printing in "97), it must necessarily ignore the enormous impact of the Web. And like similar tales of "Productivity Paradox" it fundamentally ignores that their incorrect conclusions are based on more than twenty five years of data "category error" (insufficient definitions). Hence the recent NAICS data corrections reflect the enormous economic impact that previously was denied.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Thesis about computers and productivity quickly became false
Review: This book makes good points about how computer usability problems impact productivity. The author argues that computers had a negative impact on productivity in the years 1973-1993, but misses the idea that these were years of learning to incorporate computer technology deeply into business processes. Four year later, his argument that computers do not have a dramatic and positive impact on economic productivity seems quaint.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good material, however poorly written...
Review: This book seemed a bit archich in its writing style and one could tell that it was an engineer that had written the book.


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