Books

Contextual Design : A Customer-Centered Approach to Systems Designs (Interactive Technologies)

Average customer rating:

In how many ways can you say it...
Techniques requirement
Great book, right price
Useless
Hard to Penetrate

Contextual Design : A Customer-Centered Approach to Systems Designs (Interactive Technologies)
Hugh Beyer , and Karen Holtzblatt
Manufacturer: Morgan Kaufmann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Rapid Contextual Design: A How-to Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design (Interactive Technologies)
The Design of Everyday Things
Problem Frames: Analyzing and Structuring Software Development Problems
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition)
Advanced Use Case Modeling: Software Systems

ASIN: 1558604111

Amazon.com

There's certainly no shortage of software design methods: most demand total allegiance, and many claim to be the only true way to delivering useful and maintainable software systems in a timely manner. Contextual Design describes another worthwhile software engineering method, one that places the user (or customer) at the forefront of the software design process from beginning to end. This method seems to be a particularly worthwhile addition to the literature.

Contextual Design begins with contextual inquiry, where software developers interview users and attempt to understand the way they work. Such "customer empathy" is central to the Contextual Design process and a total understanding of "work" within organizations is the mantra here. The book describes how, later in the process, software developers step back from the user data and do an "affinity," which is an overall analysis of hundreds (or even thousands) of individual facts. Contextual Design then explains the additional steps required to build systems using this method, including building models for flow, sequence, and artifacts, and establishing the cultural and the physical environments for a system. After getting an overview, developers consolidate these initial models, get more user input, and then design user interfaces.

This book, written in a clear, informal style without excessive jargon, reads very much like a book on business motivation. Various practitioners of Contextual Design offer short testimonials on the software design method.

Book Description

This book introduces a customer-centered approach to business by showing how data gathered from people while they work can drive the definition of a product or process while supporting the needs of teams and their organizations. This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflect the way customers want to do their work. The authors developed Contextual Design, the method discussed here, through their work with teams struggling to design products and internal systems. In this book, you'll find the underlying principles of the method and how to apply them to different problems, constraints, and organizational situations.

Contextual Design enables you to
+ gather detailed data about how people work and use systems
+ develop a coherent picture of a whole customer population
+ generate systems designs from a knowledge of customer work
+ diagram a set of existing systems, showing their relationships, inconsistencies, redundancies, and omissions

Customer Reviews:

In how many ways can you say it..........2007-04-27

If you've got a memory like a gold fish this might be a great book. For others this book is likely to be repetative to the extreme. Half of the pages could easily be cut out. The same message gets repeated over and over again. Many of the ideas are great but.. for many people out there time is a limiting factor, thats my largest issue with both the book and the method in general.

Techniques requirement.......2004-05-13

This book provided a method to gather requirement efficiently but the rest of the method should be revised.

Great book, right price.......2002-02-14

Beyer & Holtzblatt have done an excellent job describing the process of contextual design. I'm currently implementing a new company-wide business process, in conjunction with co-workers, and thought it would simply be a good idea to both refresh my memory, gather ideas, and form concepts that would be helpful in the organizational design process. This book has undoubtedly served the purposes I've wanted it to. Again, excellent book - worth the buy.

Useless.......2001-11-27

This is quite a useless book about an otherwise interesting subject. The writers give redundancy and repetition new meaning as they repeat themselves by saying the same thing over and over innumerable ways.

That said, the examples scattered throughout the text are the most interesting part.

Hard to Penetrate.......2001-08-22

I have read a lot of glowing reviews about this book but I have found that, while it is good, I think it is too dense to be great. It is a very difficult read. The writing style is very heavy. I would love a one-pager of the ideas in this book. My sense is that it would read "Watch Users." There are better books on the subject. I like "The Inmates are Running the Asylum."

The Usability Engineering Lifecycle: A Practitioner's Handbook for User Interface Design (Interactive Technologies)

Average customer rating:

Excellent book
Is it just me???
My Bible
A pratical process with material ; can be integrated in UP
Must buy for human computer engineers

The Usability Engineering Lifecycle: A Practitioner's Handbook for User Interface Design (Interactive Technologies)
Deborah J. Mayhew
Manufacturer: Morgan Kaufmann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) (Interactive Technologies)
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces (Interactive Technologies)
Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
The Design of Everyday Things

ASIN: 1558605614

Book Description

A commitment to usability in user interface design and development offers enormous benefits, including greater user productivity, more competitive products, lower support costs, and a more efficient development process. But what does it mean to be committed to usability? Inside, a twenty-year expert answers this question in full, presenting the techniques of Usability Engineering as a series of product lifecycle tasks that result directly in easier-to-learn, easier-to-use software.
You'll learn to perform a complete requirements analysis and then incorporate the resulting goals and constraints in a highly structured, iterative design and development process. This process doesn't end with installation but instead begins anew with the collection of user feedback that will guide further development. Also covered are organizational issues related to the implementation of Usability Engineering, including cost justification, project planning, and organizational structures.

* Unites all current UE techniques in a single, authoritative resource, presenting a coherent lifecycle process in which each clearly defined task leads directly the next.
* Teaches concrete, immediately usable skills to practitioners in all kinds of product development organizations-from internal departments to commercial developers to consultants.
* Contains examples of actual software development projects and the ways in which they have benefited from Usability Engineering.
* Deals in specifics, not generalities-provides detailed templates and instructions for every phase of the Usability Engineering lifecycle.
* Pays special attention to Web site development and explains how Usability Engineering principles can be applied to the development of any interactive product.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent book.......2006-03-06

This book is very well written, content-rich and provides a plethora of examples that I can use on the job immediately. What more can a software developer ask for? I would give it 10 stars if the option was available.

Is it just me???.......2005-07-20

Or do other people think there is a need for creativity in user interface design? This book, while very helpful in providing a set of procedures to follow when evaluating users and their particular needs, leaves out the very important concept of the ART of user interface design. I see plenty of recommends for Tufte's trilogy of user oriented design books and for the book "Don't Make Me Think". These books are much more readable, and none of them are nearly so formulaic in their approach to user interface design.

Another problem I have with this book, and with many other computer books, is the size. Why does it take so much to say so little? Is there an editor in the house? There is definitely some good content in this book. I happens to be buried in a mountain of text.

My Bible.......2001-12-28

I have never written a review before, but I am so impressed with this book - it is indispensable. I particularly like the way the information is presented - very readable. Also valuable are the sections that address shortcuts and alternatives for applying techniques in the real world. I often am called to get involved during and after development and have to adapt "perfect world" techniques into very short cycles. This is a must have for people in our profession.

A pratical process with material ; can be integrated in UP.......2000-06-24

This book is great ! Really ! I pratice OO development especially following RUP. This book describe a full Usability process, with activities, guidelines, workload estimation and artifacts. You can directly put it at work, because you naturally see why an activity leads to another. All the book is good, even if it seems heavy (500+ pp), there is no waste of space. As a RUP practitioner, it's very easy to integrate this approach into the RUP and it naturally fits with Use Cases. Believe me: get it !

Must buy for human computer engineers.......2000-01-17

This book gives concrete data on the "how-to" of usability engineering and realistic data regarding the *selling process* of these concepts to management. Additionally, it can function as a "how-to" handbook with its many examples. To name a few, the examples include: pre-evaluation, evaluation and post-evaluation questionnaries, data collection sheets and data analysis and report sheets.

The book has a fantastic index for quick reference and is organized well.

User Interface Design and Evaluation (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) (Interactive Technologies)

Average customer rating:

User Interface Design and Evaluation (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) (Interactive Technologies)
Debbie Stone , Caroline Jarrett , Mark Woodroffe , and Shailey Minocha
Manufacturer: Morgan Kaufmann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Design of Everyday Things
Understanding Your Users: A Practical Guide to User Requirements Methods, Tools, and Techniques (Interactive Technologies)
A Practical Guide to Usability Testing
Cost-Justifying Usability, Second Edition: An Update for the Internet Age, Second Edition (Interactive Technologies)
Usability Engineering (Interactive Technologies)

ASIN: 0120884364

Book Description

Whether you are a professional new to the user-centered design field, or an experienced designer who needs to learn the fundamentals of user interface design and evaluation, this book can lead the way.

What will you get from this book? Based on a course from the Open University, UK which has been taught to over a thousand professionals and students, this book presents an overview of the field. It illustrates the benefits of a user-centered approach to the design of software, computer systems, and web sites, and provides a clear and practical discussion of requirements gathering; developing interaction design from user requirements; and user interface evaluation. The book's coverage includes established HCI topicsfor example, visibility, affordance, feedback, metaphors, mental models, and the likecombined with practical guidelines for contemporary designs and current trends, which makes for a winning combination. You get a clear presentation of ideas, illustrations of concepts, using real-world applications.

This book will help you develop all the skills necessary for iterative user-centered design, and provides a firm foundation for user interface design and evaluation on which to build.

* Covers the design of graphical user interfaces, web sites, and interfaces for embedded systems
* Full color production, with activities, projects, hundreds of illustrations, and industrial applications.
* A supporting web site includes sample exam paper, numerous activities to practice the concepts learned, and a set of review questions to test your own learningplus web resources.

Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think (Interactive Technologies)

Average customer rating:

I wish it had been available for purchase three years ago
an oxy-moron
INDISPENSIBLE SURVEY OF THE FRONTIERS OF INFOVIZ
We must learn to challenge icons.
An excellent collection with great chapter overviews

Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think (Interactive Technologies)

Manufacturer: Morgan Kaufmann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Information Visualization, Second Edition: Perception for Design (Interactive Technologies)
Information Visualization: Beyond the Horizon
Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition
Envisioning Information

ASIN: 1558605339

Amazon.com

This collection of classic and ground-breaking papers explores the issues involved in information visualization--thought versus perception, mental process versus graphic representation. In Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think, visualization is defined as "the use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of data to amplify cognition."

The papers are organized into the categories of "Space," "Interaction," "Focus + Context," "Data Mapping: Document Visualization," "Infosphere, Workspace, Tools, and Objects," and "Using Vision to Think." Subcategories are divided into the following:

1-D, 2-D, and 3-D structures
Multiple dimensions
Trees
Networks
Dynamic queries
Interactive analysis
Fisheye views
Alternate geometry
Text in various dimensions
The Internet
Information workspaces
Visually enhanced objects

Discussions of the applications for and implications of visualization processes complete the book. Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think is targeted at research professionals in academia and industry; students new to the field; and professionals in statistics, information design, and medicine. The papers should be of particular interest to specialists in any area in which discovering the relationships between data and its visual representation is critical. --Kathleen Caster

Book Description

This groundbreaking book defines the emerging field of information visualization and offers the first-ever collection of the classic papers of the discipline, with introductions and analytical discussions of each topic and paper. The authors' intention is to present papers that focus on the use of visualization to discover relationships, using interactive graphics to amplify thought. This book is intended for research professionals in academia and industry; new graduate students and professors who want to begin work in this burgeoning field; professionals involved in financial data analysis, statistics, and information design; scientific data managers; and professionals involved in medical, bioinformatics, and other areas.

* Full-color reproduction throughout
* Author power team - an exciting and timely collaboration between the field's pioneering, most-respected names
* The only book on Information Visualization with the depth necessary for use as a text or as a reference for the information professional
* Text includes the classic source papers as well as a collection of cutting edge work

Customer Reviews:

I wish it had been available for purchase three years ago.......2001-01-05

If I would have been able to buy what basically amounts to a near comprehensive gathering of exactly the kind of research I've spent the past three years trying to find....I'd be a happer man with far more hair on my head.

Caveat: you gotta be the kind of person who likes reading this sort of thing. I love reading RFC's so its way up my alley. If you are looking for a Reader's Digest version of how to develop interfaces for complex systems you won't find it here.

But if you are one who seeks to augment your own personal toolbox with the findings of those far more wise than yourself, get out your wallet and buy this book. Its great.

an oxy-moron.......2000-07-05

hey somebody ripped me off!

yes the written content is full of great information, and is highly acclaimed. However the vast majority of the images used in this book are nearly unreadable due to the extremely poor reproduction quality and low image resolution. This leads me to wonder whether the book was printed at kinkos or printed from the high school's 150 dpi printer!

i've seen photocopies that looked better than this! i'm not kidding!

come on.. black text on dark grey background?

were these conscious design decisions?

note... the 1 star is to bring down the average. i bought the book due to the perfect record of all 5 stars, however i don't believe a book on design topics should get away with such horrid imagery for the price..

2 of the 3 authors for this book are from xerox... i wouldn't doubt they used thier own xerox machine to reproduce the graphic designs found within the pages inside the cover.

INDISPENSIBLE SURVEY OF THE FRONTIERS OF INFOVIZ.......2000-01-11

Stuart Card, Jock Mackinlay, and Ben Shneiderman, all extraordinary leaders in creating and researching the field on human-computer interface design, have pooled their editorial judgment to create a comprehensive, and much-needed collection of pioneering articles on information visualization. They have produced remarkable survey of such topics as context, mapping, spatial metaphors, interaction, navigation, and visual tools.

680 pages! 47 articles! Filled with excellent choices of research and invention woven together with incisive summaries of the widely disparate, individual software accomplishments of the leaders of the field from around the world. This indispensable collection not only provides in-depth solutions to specific problems but also shows the explorer where the current frontiers are.

A rich, solid, impressive, and welcome contribution to a field that affects all of our lives now that the interactive graphic computer has made all of us users of visual language. Altogether indispensable for the researcher and innovator who will return to this remarkable collection again and again.

--Robert E. Horn, author, "Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century" and visiting scholar, Program on People, Computers and Design, The Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.

We must learn to challenge icons........1999-02-27

This book enters our sensibilites.

We must learn to challenge our vulnerability toward icons. In order to take our place in the upcoming era, we must recognize how many burdens we have carried because we have reacted to iconography --a phenomena far deeper than mere affection toward slogans and images. A healthy human intelligence is adaptive not reactive. We must recognize the terrible demand upon us to develop a serious forethought.

The approach and language of this book stimulates our desire to develop appropriate tools and poo-poos the fashions of populism --a phenomena at its worst in current computing circles!

We're being drawn into using the computer for JUNK. This book asks us to grow up. Great idea!

An excellent collection with great chapter overviews.......1999-02-18

This is an excellent reference to the field. It brings together many of the classic papers published over the last 10 years or so. The editors provide a terrific overview and introduction to each of the chapters. These overviews alone would make a good book. Together with the collected papers, it is a welcome addition to my library.

The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary

Average customer rating:

A great start point to everyone who wants to understand the open source world
Amazing!!!
ESR Helps the Intermediate Software Developer Understand His Environment
For those who question why open source makes sense
A classic with much to offer, but flawed.

The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary
Eric S. Raymond
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly Open Source)
The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source
Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman
The Success of Open Source
Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing

ASIN: 0596001088

Amazon.com

It may be foolish to consider Eric Raymond's recent collection of essays, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, the most important computer programming thinking to follow the Internet revolution. But it would be more unfortunate to overlook the implications and long-term benefits of his fastidious description of open-source software development considering the growing dependence businesses and economies have on emerging computer technologies.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar takes its title from an essay Raymond read at the 1997 Linux Kongress. The essay documents Raymond's acquisition, re-creation, and numerous revisions of an e-mail utility known as fetchmail. Raymond engagingly narrates the fetchmail development process while elaborating on the ongoing bazaar development method he uses with the help of volunteer programmers. The essay smartly spares the reader from the technical morass that could easily detract from the text's goal of demonstrating the efficacy of the open-source, or bazaar, method in creating robust, usable software.

Once Raymond has established the components and players necessary for an optimally running open-source model, he sets out to counter the conventional wisdom of private, closed-source software development. Like superbly written code, the author's arguments systematically anticipate their rebuttals. For programmers who "worry that the transition to open source will abolish or devalue their jobs," Raymond adeptly and factually counters that "most developer's salaries don't depend on software sale value." Raymond's uncanny ability to convince is as unrestrained as his capacity for extrapolating upon the promise of open-source development.

In addition to outlining the open-source methodology and its benefits, Raymond also sets out to salvage the hacker moniker from the nefarious connotations typically associated with it in his essay, "A Brief History of Hackerdom" (not surprisingly, he is also the compiler of The New Hacker's Dictionary). Recasting hackerdom in a more positive light may be a heroic undertaking in itself, but considering the Herculean efforts and perfectionist motivations of Raymond and his fellow open-source developers, that light will shine brightly. --Ryan Kuykendall

Book Description

Open source provides the competitive advantage in the Internet Age. According to the August Forrester Report, 56 percent of IT managers interviewed at Global 2,500 companies are already using some type of open source software in their infrastructure and another 6 percent will install it in the next two years. This revolutionary model for collaborative software development is being embraced and studied by many of the biggest players in the high-tech industry, from Sun Microsystems to IBM to Intel. The Cathedral & the Bazaar is a must for anyone who cares about the future of the computer industry or the dynamics of the information economy. Already, billions of dollars have been made and lost based on the ideas in this book. Its conclusions will be studied, debated, and implemented for years to come. According to Bob Young, "This is Eric Raymond's great contribution to the success of the open source revolution, to the adoption of Linux-based operating systems, and to the success of open source users and the companies that supply them." The interest in open source software development has grown enormously in the past year. This revised and expanded paperback edition includes new material on open source developments in 1999 and 2000. Raymond's clear and effective writing style accurately describing the benefits of open source software has been key to its success. With major vendors creating acceptance for open source within companies, independent vendors will become the open source story in 2001.

Customer Reviews:

A great start point to everyone who wants to understand the open source world.......2007-01-03

I think it's quite hard to find a book (and also an author) with deep knowledge and clear information related to Open Source software as this one. The logic presented here is useful not only for aspirant hackers but also for everyone interesting in the fascinating Open Source revolution.

Amazing!!!.......2006-07-14

I'm enjoying this book very, very much!!!
I makes you want to adere to an Open Source project. :)

ESR Helps the Intermediate Software Developer Understand His Environment.......2006-02-04

This is my second experience with ESR's books, and I've been very pleased with both of them. Looking at software development from his "anthropologist" perspective, has proven extremely helpful in better understanding my experiences in the industry, and especially in seeing things about people and processes that I didn't realize were there until he'd pointed them out. I don't think this would have made much sense to me if I was new to the software development environment, but now that I've been in it for several years and experienced different people and different groups with their own different processes, ESR's conceptual insights have helped me evaluate my own way of working and thinking. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's been in software development for at least three years... I think your own experience is very important to have behind you when reading ESR's books. This kind of reading led me to the Fred Brook classic "The Mythical Man-Month", which I think is still full of applicable insights (a whopping 30 years after it was first published).

For those who question why open source makes sense.......2006-01-29

Eric Raymond presents a coherent and well-supported case that explains why open source makes commercial sense. Putting aside the "religious" fervor of some of his arguments, the logic on why the open source movement can spawn successful businesses is irrefutable. Read it and you will understand why traditional (proprietary) software business models have become a dying breed. I would rate the book a "5" but for some parts where the text becomes somewhat convoluted and repetitive. Overall, a must-read for anyone involved in software development.

A classic with much to offer, but flawed........2005-12-30

Eric Raymond is widely regarded as the anthropologist of the hacker community. This is Eric Raymond's revised classic with some new material. It is the first comprehensive commentary on the sociology of the Open Source community, and recommended reading for anyone doing business in software development, or running a business that depends on software and the Internet.

Like many of Eric Raymond's colleagues and fellow Geeks, he is clearly a brilliant individual, carried forward by focused effort and imagination. And like many talented people, he is an autodidact; self taught bar some courses in philosophy and mathematics. This is not a criticism. Raymond's career, publications and contribution show amply the intellectual qualities he possesses. However, his lack of training in social, economic and cultural science shows. And, as an insider (he is one of the original tribe of hackers) he is not the best person to make a disinterested commentary on the hacker community.

Great hackers, he tells us, are humble people. A more critical observer would have analyzed the comparative payoffs of styles showing why a loud mouth style - while it might work for some performers or show oriented careers - doesn't pay in this community. This is generally true of communities in which peers are well able to judge the quality of each other's contributions. Faking it doesn't payoff, and looking like you might need to fake it is counter productive. Insofar as the behaviour of chief hackers is humble, we learn more about the social economy of hackerdom than about distinctive individual personalities.

Despite many insights, Eric Raymond is wrong in his principal analysis. Why, he asks, do talented people spend years of unpaid work on projects that benefit others for no pecuniary reward? He characterizes hackers as members of a gift giving community, and attributes too much of the hacker motivation to altruism and idealism.

The central problem is not "why do hackers work for no pay?" Rather, why do people work for money? Or, more fundamentally, why do people work? I take it that readers will agree that we can roughly divide our motives into physiological drives (hunger, thirst, need for shelter, sex) and the "higher" needs (self fulfilment and meaning). After satisfying the needs for food, shelter and companionship why do we continue to work at all? If it is to get status, to get power, to feel good about ourselves and similar, then money beyond basic needs is unnecessary. Onassis once remarked "Without women, all the money in the world is worthless." Some of us work to become wealthy, and we trade that wealth for status, power, respect and admiration, and perhaps we use our wealth to get women, sex and occasionally love. If this is what these motives are for, then even the higher needs are secondary to sex; or, as evolutionary psychologists tell us, are all about reproduction.

Money is a means. If I can earn status, power and respect directly, why waste time with money? Of course, money is fungible. That means it can be traded easily for a great many things; a big house and a luxury car, perhaps. But possessing these is merely another way of obtaining status, power, respect, admiration and sex, if not love.

Why am I writing this review? By my own dispassionate analysis, I am advertising my capacity to say sensible things and I am making a reputation; this is an asset in the social and commercial market place. Amazon might like me for doing this, but they would be mistaken to think that I write reviews out of altruism directed at Amazon; at least not defined in any metaphysical or moral sense. Sociobiologists denote some social instincts "altruism" but these are operational definitions of instincts as Machiavellian as any scheming tactician can be said to possess; in that sense I may be an altruist. Hackers too, for their work is not unlike my book reviews. Hackers trade in an economy that differs not one jot from the money economy, and Eric Raymond, in so far as he supposes it to be a fundamentally different kind of economy, is mistaken.

Likewise the account of hacker commitment to lofty ideals are not any more credible - but also not any less credible - than the mission statements and codes of ethics written by CEOs of major corporations. Among hackers are people as likely to steal code as are others to donate code; to write viruses as to write Fetch Mail. An anarchic disrespect for some of our more widely accepted conventions for protecting property rights is a characteristic of hacker mentality; not one that we should admire. Of course, honourable idealists are found among hackers; Eric Raymond is clearly one of them. Take, for example, the Open Source Initiative that is largely his work. What an outstanding contribution that is! Clearly he is passionate about his beliefs and ideals. But honourable idealists are found among entrepreneurs too, also successful ones, and even among politicians. Let us not delude ourselves about what it is the really motivates us and our fellow travellers.

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly Open Source)

Average customer rating:

Intresting mainly to see the differeces among the authors...
good document - articles a mixed bag (naturally)
A fascinating read
Fascinating essays
a well-intentioned but naive view of software

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly Open Source)
Chris DiBona , Sam Ockman , Mark Stone , Brian Behlendorf , Scott Bradner , Jim Hamerly , Kirk McKusick , Tim O'Reilly , Tom Paquin , Bruce Perens , Eric Raymond , Richard Stallman , Michael Tiemann , Linus Torvalds , Paul Vixie , Larry Wall , and Bob Young
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary
Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution
The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source
Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software
Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman

ASIN: 1565925823

Amazon.com

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution is a fascinating look at the raging debate that is its namesake. Filled with writings from the central players--from Linux creator Linus Torvalds to Perl creator Larry Wall--the book convinces the reader of the overwhelming merits of freeing up the many iterations of software's source code.

The open-source movement has become a cause célèbre in light of the widespread adoption of Linux, Perl, and Apache as well as its corporate support from Netscape, IBM, and Oracle--and strongly felt opposition from Microsoft. Open Sources doesn't address why these Microsoft foes are throwing their weight behind the movement. Instead, it focuses on the history and philosophy of open-source software (previously referred to as freeware) as an argument for shaping the future of programming. Open Sources is much larger than just a fight with any one company. Instead, it is a revolutionary call to release software development from the vested interests that label new directions in software development as threatening.

This is not to say that opening the source code is an entirely egalitarian and communistic endeavor. These are programmers and startup owners; they want to be able to continue to program for a living. To that end, Open Sources contains strong business profiles from entrepreneurs such as Apache's--and now, O'Reilly & Associates'--Brian Behlendorf, who discusses how to give away software in order to lure customers in for specialized versions. In many ways, this is a hands-on guide, displaying an insider's view of the development process and providing specifics on testing details and altering licensing agreements. However, interspersed with tech talk is a reader-friendly guide for those interested in the future of software development. --Jennifer Buckendorff

Book Description

Freely available source code, with contributions from thousands of programmers around the world: this is the spirit of the software revolution known as Open Source. Open Source has grabbed the computer industry's attention. Netscape has opened the source code to Mozilla; IBM supports Apache; major database vendors haved ported their products to Linux. As enterprises realize the power of the open-source development model, Open Source is becoming a viable mainstream alternative to commercial software. Now in Open Sources, leaders of Open Source come together for the first time to discuss the new vision of the software industry they have created. The essays in this volume offer insight into how the Open Source movement works, why it succeeds, and where it is going. For programmers who have labored on open-source projects, Open Sources is the new gospel: a powerful vision from the movement's spiritual leaders. For businesses integrating open-source software into their enterprise, Open Sources reveals the mysteries of how open development builds better software, and how businesses can leverage freely available software for a competitive business advantage. The contributors here have been the leaders in the open-source arena:

Brian Behlendorf (Apache)
Kirk McKusick (Berkeley Unix)
Tim O'Reilly (Publisher, O'Reilly & Associates)
Bruce Perens (Debian Project, Open Source Initiative)
Tom Paquin and Jim Hamerly (mozilla.org, Netscape)
Eric Raymond (Open Source Initiative)
Richard Stallman (GNU, Free Software Foundation, Emacs)
Michael Tiemann (Cygnus Solutions)
Linus Torvalds (Linux)
Paul Vixie (Bind)
Larry Wall (Perl)

This book explains why the majority of the Internet's servers use open- source technologies for everything from the operating system to Web serving and email. Key technology products developed with open-source software have overtaken and surpassed the commercial efforts of billion dollar companies like Microsoft and IBM to dominate software markets. Learn the inside story of what led Netscape to decide to release its source code using the open-source mode. Learn how Cygnus Solutions builds the world's best compilers by sharing the source code. Learn why venture capitalists are eagerly watching Red Hat Software, a company that gives its key product -- Linux -- away. For the first time in print, this book presents the story of the open- source phenomenon told by the people who created this movement. Open Sources will bring you into the world of free software and show you the revolution.

Customer Reviews:

Intresting mainly to see the differeces among the authors..........2001-10-21

This book is an interesting window on the Open Source world. It is a strange planet with strange people. Some crazy idealist like R. Stallman (I like the guy very much), some smart and intelligent person like L. Torvald (he did a very good job with Linux). In between someone that was just in the right place at the right time, but who doesn't deserve so much space and celebrity. I am talking about a person that seems confused as the language he invented: Larry Wall. His contribution does not require further comments.

good document - articles a mixed bag (naturally).......2001-06-11

This is a good idea on O'Reilly's part to try to document the history and goals of the Open Source movement, which had roots in several college campuses and research labs in the '70s and '80s, and became news in the late '90s with the popularity of Linux, Apache, and the decision of Netscape to open its browser source. The best introductory piece, however, is probably Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and the Bazaar" which is not in this book(O'Reilly publishes it separately, but it's available free on the Web and short enough to be read in one sitting). As for this collection, I liked Robert Young's business case for distributing open source - his story of how Red Hat was launched reminds me of the Compaq tale of "three guys in a restaurant". The Apache article is also quite good, and Linus Torvalds offers a brief but interesting (and characteristically opinionated) article about how Linux evolved technically. There's also a good article discussing the various open source licenses (BSD, GPL, Netscape, etc) and what they do and don't restrict.

Others I was less impressed with. Stallman's article is predictable and self-serving. He explains how he evolved his software-as-gift philosophy but doesn't come close to terms with how the software industry can support substantial employment if all source is given away. There's yet another history of the different branches of BSD Unix. There's a breathtaking inside account of the launch of Mozilla which ends with the fancy Silicon Valley party when development has finally gotten underway. The low point is Larry Wall's "essay", which is a frankly ridiculous waste of time and print.

Although this is a mixed bag, there's enough reference material and interesting points of view to keep the book around.

A fascinating read.......2000-12-30

All the essays are well written, enjoyable, informative and a great read. Anyone interested in open source software, where S/W development might be going and Unix/Linux/GNU software in particular, should read this book. One or two essays showing their age, but still worth every penny. Buy it, read it, then encourage your friends to read it as well.

Fascinating essays.......2000-11-16

This book was the first O'Reilly book to contain essays about the concept of Open Source and was later followed by the book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. While some essays may seem similar to the latter, each of them are still fascinating and offer an insightful look into what makes Open Source work and why this phenomenon has become its own industry.

Among the essays here are included a "history" of Unix, essays about Cygnus (who offers a source code complier program) and Red Hat (who offers Linux), two businesses that sell services related to open source, an essay about the effects of releasing open source code for Netscape, one about the GNU Operating System and even one by Linux Torvals, the "father" of Linux.

What's continually fascinating to me the more I read about Open Source is the amount of time and energy others voluntarily put into an open source project to make it work that much better. Not to mention the entire "society" that is built around Open Source.

An interesting read, along with the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

a well-intentioned but naive view of software.......2000-06-08

Open Sources is a collection of essays by people who have been involved in a prominent way in what is being called "the open source revolution." The authors are all very bright people with good intentions and diverse viewpoints; this makes for interesting reading. However, I had a problem with the introduction. In fact, I hated it. It attempts to couch the issue of free vs. non-free software in religious terms: in the bad old days, free software only came from universities or other government-funded research. Then, a few companies saw the light and began to open-source their software; currently the industry is divided between these companies (the saved) and the rest of the companies (the damned) who will spiral into oblivion due to their proprietary selfishness. I thought the presence of this sort of rhetoric in the introduction, which sets the tone for the rest of the book, was particularly unfortunate.

The essays in Open Sources are a mixed bag. Kirk McKusick's history of Berkeley UNIX is great, as is Michael Tiemann's history of Cygnus Solutions, RMS's article about the GNU project, and Bruce Perens' article about licensing issues. Also, I really enjoyed the transcript of the infamous 1992 flame war between Linus and Andy Tanenbaum about the merits of Linux vs. Minix. On the other hand, Paul Vixie's article about software engineering is pretty random, Larry Wall's article does not seem to have a point at all, and Eric Raymond's

second article and Tom Paquin's account of the open-sourcing of Netscape are too self-serving to be useful.

Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. However, the year that has passed since its publication has exposed some of the more outlandish predictions made by its contributors (Eric Raymond said that Windows 2000 would either be canceled or be a complete disaster). My guess is that Open Sources is not destined to become a classic. Rather, in a few years it will be viewed as an interesting but somewhat naive period piece.

Average customer rating:

Very Comprehensive and Well Organized
GOOD TITLE
Wanna know about 3D UI?
Academic overview of the field
Sweeping survey

3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice
Doug A. Bowman , Ernst Kruijff , Joseph J. LaViola , and Ivan Poupyrev
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Spatial Augmented Reality: Merging Real and Virtual Worlds
Understanding Virtual Reality: Interface, Application, and Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics)
Virtual Reality Technology, Second Edition with CD-ROM
The End of Hardware: A Novel Approach to Augmented Reality (2nd Edition)
Information Visualization, Second Edition: Perception for Design (Interactive Technologies)

ASIN: 0201758679

Customer Reviews:

Very Comprehensive and Well Organized.......2007-06-02

If you will entering the world of virtual environments, 3D graphics and worlds, virtual reality and even augmented reality, this book will give you ALL the background information you need. It summarizes everything from software, hardware devices, interaction and everything that deals with the Third dimension.

GOOD TITLE.......2007-02-22

The book present a very good perspective that how is walking the tecnology of 3DUI, and limits that are growing down versus time.

Wanna know about 3D UI?.......2005-09-23

If you are interested in knowing 3D UI, you should buy this book. It covers almost every technologies designed or developed in recent years. This book consists of about 13 chapters. In each chapter, it explained the different aspect of 3D UI interfaces following chronological patterns. So, if you want to follow or know technological paradigms, it can be one of useful books you should reference.

Academic overview of the field.......2004-10-14

I hope nobody takes academic in the negative sense. This is fascinating book that provides an overview of all of the different hardware and software techniques in the 3D user interface world. And it does a very capable job of using a combination of images and text to describe the technologies. It's academic in two regards; first, it's written like a paper, and second that it has little in terms of practical implementation.

Frankly I doubt you could go far beyond the academic in an overview of a field that is this broad and this early in it's development. What this book does do is provide some real incentive to enthusiasts and developers to evaluate and combine these technologies. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who is in the field or has an interest in it.

Sweeping survey.......2004-08-26

A fortnight ago, at the Siggraph 2004 convention in Los Angeles, Addison-Wesley had a booth with many of their graphics books. This book was garnering a fair amount of interest. Now that I've had a chance to read it, I can see why.

It is a lucid explanation of how to design three dimensional user interfaces. The authors summarise a vast body of work done in past decades. Plus, unlike perhaps some books that might focus on only US research, they show the global scope of the effort.

Being a text on 3D graphics, you might expect considerable maths. There is indeed some, including a brief description of quarternions. But the amount of maths is deliberately downplayed. Enough is used to impart a basic flavour in certain sections. However, the general tenor of the book is at a higher level of design.

Many serious issues remain unresolved. The book shows you what these are. Very helpful if you are in this field. Especially for newcomers.

Integrating Agile Development in the Real World (Programming Series) (Programming Series)

Average customer rating:

Excellent practical guide to doing agile in real world
Excellent material for a transition from a traditional approach
This pulls it together!
not for your average programmer
Real-World Results

Integrating Agile Development in the Real World (Programming Series) (Programming Series)
Peter Schuh
Manufacturer: Charles River Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide
Agile Estimating and Planning (Robert C. Martin Series)
User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development (The Addison-Wesley Signature Series)
Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional)
Agile Software Development with SCRUM

ASIN: 1584503645

Book Description

Have your software projects been suffering from the age-old development problems of slipped schedules and ballooning budgets? Has your development organization experienced a variety of failed and canceled projects? If so, you may benefit from infusing some agility into your development process. Agile development breaks with a 40-year tradition of applying ever more structure and formalization to the design and development of software by advocating a return to the basic principles of satisfied customers, working software, and the willingness to accept and respond to change. As the popularity of agile development has grown, IT professionals have begun to struggle with ways to integrate agile practices and processes into traditional project environments. Integrating Agile Development in the Real World provides programmers and managers with specific and implementable ways to use agile processes in everyday software development projects. Whether read cover-to-cover, or used as a field guide during an agile transition, this book provides valuable insight into how agile practices and processes may be applied in almost any environment. Everything from how to deliver a working system sooner, acknowledge and respond to change, better meet the needs of the project?s customer, to increasing software quality, and fostering a more communicative and collaborative team culture are thoroughly covered.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent practical guide to doing agile in real world.......2007-01-08

If you want to learn about how to take your theoretical understanding of agile development and implement it in the real word, this is a good book for you. Very well written. Very well organized to give concrete ideas in a logical manner for successful implementation.

This book does not spend too much time on teaching basic tenets of different agile methodologies other than providing a brief overview of different agile methodologies at the beginning. That's good enough considering the objective of the book which is to give real-life "how to" implement agile development practices in the real world.

The author does a good job of grouping agile practices as they apply to different sub-disciplines such as development, testing, documentation, project management, people management, communication management etc. This provides a nice way to pick and choose practices to attack some low hanging fruits first and then go for difficult ones later after getting a few successes under your belt.

People management which is treated with very little detail in many books finds a good measure of treatment in this book. That is certainly refreshing. One thing I would not forget from this book is something goes like this - "Skills can be learnt by anyone with varying degrees of speed and effectiveness. Nevertheless, they can be learnt by anyone given sufficient time and training. Experience naturally comes with time. But, character is one thing that is ingrained in a person. So, while hiring people do not focus only on skills and experience but pay close attention to the character." Of course, teaching how to hire right people is not one of the objectives of the book. But, the fact that the author recognizes the very important but hard to quantify character as one of the most important attributes while selecting team shows his maturity and hard earned battle proven expertise in the real world.

Best practices get very limited treatment in the areas of requirements engineering, documentation, integrating other important cross functional disciplines such as user training, outbound product management, tech support. However, while delivering a large software product, these functions play very important role and practicing agile may have serious impact on their work as well. Offshore development and large distributed development also gets very minimal treatment.

All in all a great book on the basics of how to do agile in real world.

Excellent material for a transition from a traditional approach.......2006-03-14

This book provides excellent material for a transition from a traditional approach to an agile method. The book gives only a brief description of the agile methods (XP, Scrum, FDD, etc.), but you will find a detailed presentation of the best practices common to agile approaches. For each of them, the author exposes the purposes, the prerequisites, the implementation, the opportunities and obstacles.

The books provides an agile treatment of many of the daily problems of software development projects like database management, data conversion, test data management, project communication, documentation, end-user contacts or developers management. The most interesting point for me in this book is that the author recognises that you cannot always start with a white page and require an "all-agile" process. It provides information on how to integrate gradually agile practices in a traditional software development context.

This pulls it together!.......2005-07-29

Peter's book is a great tool for helping you solidify your Agile practices. As a consultant, I've found it extremely beneficial for tweaking our Agile methodology. My clients that use it have appreciated the very practical and straightforward advice as well. Appropriate for BOTH managers and developers... ;)

not for your average programmer.......2005-03-31

Integrating Agile Development in the Real World is basically a manual on implementing Agile development in a real-world environment. The book is well written and clear. However, this book is not for the casual reader or developer.

The "Who should read this book" section in the front says it best; it indicates that this book was written for someone who already has a strong understanding of Agile development (you can check the section out for specifics) and is wanting to attempt to implement it in their own development.

Since Agile development is fairly flexible and can be applied to variety of disciplines, it also assumes you are familiar with one (for example, XP) and will be reading it with this in mind. If you aren't very familiar with these, this book is definitely not for you. If you are, then you could learn a lot from it.

If you have some familiarity with one or more disciplines, however, this book could be used as a guide to adding Agile development to a development department's "toolbox". It is written from a wide-scale, departmental point of view and not intended for the solitary developer.

I found some of the text to be a little too high-level and abstract to visualize. I normally feel very comfortable with the theoretical, but this book seemed almost a little too general. Again, this might be exactly what some others would want. A counter-argument could be made that should the book become too granular, it might become more of a "how to" book rather than a "why to" book. While it won't provide you the answer to your questions, it will provide the reader with the tools necessary to figure out for sure what questions your organization should ask.

I also really liked how the book was divided. It provides very distinct sections, acknowledging that not all development tasks are the same. For example, there is a separate section for testing software (a subject near and....dear to my heart as a QA Engineer). This focus on testing is very much in tune with XP and test-driven development.

So, overall, this is a good book. It's just not for the average programmer.

Real-World Results.......2005-02-25

This book gives a project manager the "knowledge" needed to effectively manage a software product. The methods/processes defined by the author really work. I have first-hand experience that the project management techniques work and can bring a project to success, and on time.

Human Aspects of Software Engineering (Electrical and Computer Engineering Series)

Average customer rating:

Comprehensive Study of Psychology and Sociology of S.E.
Blatant XP Propaganda

Human Aspects of Software Engineering (Electrical and Computer Engineering Series)
James Tomayko , and Greg Scragg
Manufacturer: Charles River Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (Best Practices (Microsoft))
PSP(sm) : A Self-Improvement Process for Software Engineers (SEI Series in Software Engineering)
Software Requirements, Second Edition

ASIN: 1584503130

Book Description

The more the software industry matures, the more it is accepted by the software engineering community that the people involved in software development processes deserve more attention than the processes or technologies themselves. To this end, Human Aspects of Software Engineering details software engineering from the perspective of those involved in the process: individuals, teams, customers, and the organization. The book is written for software engineering students and professional software developers. It illustrates the richness and complexity of the human aspects of software engineering and covers the problems, questions, and conflicts that arise during development. The importance of these issues is widely acknowledged in the industry and academia, because many of the failures of software systems can be traced to human factors. This, however, is the first textbook for a full course on the topic. Focusing on the different social and cognitive aspects of software development, the book addresses topics such as teamwork, customer - software-engineer relationships, and learning processes in software development. These topics are central to developers in understanding the multifaceted nature of the process. While the code and technology of software engineering are discussed, they are examined from the human perspective. In addition to the detailed topic coverage, activities, questions for discussion, and practical assignments are included.

Customer Reviews:

Comprehensive Study of Psychology and Sociology of S.E........2004-08-27

First, a truth-in-advertising disclaimer:

I was a reviewer paid by the publisher to review the book
prior to its publication. While my position is highly
favorable, I do not regard it as prejudiced or influenced
by the publisher's payment. It was clearly understood
before I took the job that I could end up disliking the
book and that I was expected to report my opinion whatever
it turned out to be. Therefore, the opinion that I report
here was arrived at in the normal fair manner. I decided
that the book was good after reading it from beginning to
end, starting with a hope that the book would teach me
something. The book taught me plenty and was so well
written that I had difficulty putting the book down.

To give a flavor of the book, I give the table of contents:

Part I Software Development Environments
1 The Nature of Software Engineering (SE)
2 SE Methods (including Spiral Model, Unified Process, AND XP)
3 Working in Teams
4 Software as a Product

Part II The World of SE
5 Code of Ethics of SE
6 International Perspectives on SE
7 Different Perspectives on SE
8 The History of SE

Part III Software-Human Interaction
9 Program Comprehension, Code Inspections, and Refactoring
10 Learning Processes in SE
11 Abstraction and Other Heuristics of Software Development
12 Characteristics of Software and the Human Aspects of SE

Part IV Business Analysis of SE
13 Software Project Estimation and Tracking
14 Software as a Business
15 The Internet and the Human Aspects of SE

Part V SE Education
16 Case Studies in SE
17 Students' Summary Projects and Presentations
18 Remarks about SE Education
19 Additional Information on Resources used in This Book

I like the coverage of the book. It includes all of the
subjects I would have thought relevant and then some. It's
a great follow on to what was the first and until now the
ONLY book in the area, Ben Shneiderman's _Psychology of
Computer Programming_. Moreover, it goes so much farther
than Ben's book, as it should considering how long ago
Ben's book was published. I really liked Tomayko and
Hazzan's inclusion of ethical issues, the international
issues, the discussion of a variety methods from the
programmer's point of view, the citation of empirical data,
the comparisons to other professions, the history of SE,
and the reflective practices idea.

My own history includes software development experiences,
participations in start ups, participation in the history
of SE, and participation in developing SE education. I
found the chapters on software development teams, software
as a product, international perspectives, the history of
SE, program comprehension and code inspections, software as
a business, and SE education particularly resonating.

The coverage is the correct completeness for a textbook. I
suppose that as a researcher concerned with these issues, I
would like to have seen more depth. However, I can see that
such depth is not appropriate for a text and not
appropriate for a practitioner who wants to just see the
issues and not how the research is carried out and not what
open issues need to be followed up on. However, on the
other side of the coin, their many study questions and
tasks point to this additional depth. Thus the interested
reader can begin to explore them on his own.

Each topic is treated quite thoroughly in that every issue
I can think of about the topics is covered either in their
explanations or in an question that they raise. Of course,
Tomayko and Hazzan do not answer the questions completely
in the book, leaving it to the reader or instructor to have
fun finding the answers.

I love the addition of the tasks for the reader. They got
me thinking. I think they belong where they are, because
then they come up at a time when it is most useful to think
about them. I like the whole approach.

The biggest strength of the book is that it is so engaging
that it is hard to only skim it. One ends up reading it,
and then it is very hard put it down. It is fun to read. It
is informative. It got me to think.

I might add that I simply cannot understand the review of
John Plemme. As one can see even by looking at only the
table of contents, so little of the book is about eXtreme
programming. As a matter of fact, what there is about XP is
not entirely supportive of the idea; it is a careful
discussion of the pros and cons supported by data that the
authors and others have found.

What Mr. Plemme has learned about when programmers are
happy to write documentation and code ownership seem to be
among observations that Tomayko and Hazzan make.

Finally, there is a discussion of the psychology and
sociology of software development teams in Chapter 3.

Did John Plemme read the same book that I did?

Moreover, I happen to know that one of these college
professor authors, namely Tomayko, has over 40 years of
industrial experience developing software, e.g., for a
large aerospace contractor. My view of this book is that
it's a joint effort in which an education expert, Hazzan,
provides reflection on the hard-knocks experiences of a
software development expert who had become an excellent
software engineering professor.

Blatant XP Propaganda.......2004-06-18

I was expecting to read about psychology and sociology as they apply to software development teams. Instead it's a propaganda piece which purports to show how eXtreme Programming is the best way to write software because there's more human interaction involved. So far I've learned that developers are happy to write documentation after the code is nearly complete, and that the development process works better when nobody owns any code. Other methodologies (RUP, Spiral) are only good to the extent that they're like XP.

Note that I think XP has some good points, but every methodology needs to be looked at with a critical eye. This book seems to have been written by college professors who've never actually developed software for a living. It's a weak, weak book.

Average customer rating:

A mish-mash of articles that's not very actionable.
what any sw developer should know

International User Interfaces

Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies
The Culturally Customized Web Site: Customizing Web Sites for the Global Marketplace
A Practical Guide to Localization (Language International World Directory)
Developing International Software, Second Edition
Unicode Demystified: A Practical Programmer's Guide to the Encoding Standard

ASIN: 0471149659

Book Description

Leading authorities from around the world discuss the latest topics in international user-interface design.

With most major companies in the computer industry depending on exports for 50 percent or more of their sales, user-interface design teams face a major challenge in making their products both useful and accessible to the global marketplace. It is no longer enough to simply offer a product translated in ten to twenty different languages. Users also want a product that acknowledges their unique cultural characteristics and business practices.

In International User Interfaces, Elisa del Galdo and Jakob Nielsen head a team of acknowledged international authorities who confront some of the problems currently facing international user-interface developers, including:

International Usability Engineering.
Developing a Cultural Model.
Arabization of Graphical User Interfaces.
Managing a Multiple-Language Document System.
An Intelligent Lexical Management System for Multilingual Machine Translation.
A Chinese Text Display Supported by an Algorithm for Chinese Segmentation.
Breaking the Language Barrier with Graphics.
Cultural Issues That Can Affect Training

Customer Reviews:

A mish-mash of articles that's not very actionable........2001-04-28

I had recently purchased the NielsenNorman group's International User Interfaces whitepaper, ..., was impressed with the whitepaper, and consequently had high hopes for this book. I was pretty disappointed. It's a mish-mash of articles, only a few of which were very actionable. One such article, in chapter 3, is pretty good in that it covers to what degree various cultures communicate explicitly versus non-explicitly. This fact alone is very useful to anyone doing usability testing or market research outside the US.

what any sw developer should know.......1998-07-31

We also recommend the book "SW Internationalization and Localization" by Uren, Howard, Perinotti.

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