Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction

by Jennifer Jackson Preece

A new edition of the #1 text in the Human Computer Interaction field!

Hugely popular with students and professionals alike, Interaction Design is an ideal resource for learning the interdisciplinary skills needed for interaction design, human-computer interaction, information design, web design and ubiquitous computing.

This text offers a cross-disciplinary, practical and process-oriented introduction to the field, showing not just what principles ought to apply to interaction design, but crucially how they can be applied.

An accompanying website contains extensive additional teaching and learning material including slides for each chapter, comments on chapter activities and a number of in-depth case studies written by researchers and designers.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Computer Science, Reference, Textbooks, Technology, Programming

602 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Take a solid usability concept, slap an acronym on it, wait, then change it slightly and slap a new acronym in it, wait, then slice one piece out of it and give it it's own acronym, wait..lather, rinse, repeat.

Okay, that may be extreme, but that's how this book felt while I was reading it. Solid concepts explained repeatedly under different names. Usability engineering is not easy, but it doesn't need to be artificially inflated either. This book could be half its length and still get all points across just fine.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It never fails to amaze me how so much of school is about formalizing terms for common sense. This book is no exception. There are some interesting bits (including analysis of interactions between users in online groups/clubs/games/orgies) and some interviews with usability and UI professionals, which I liked.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book does have some helpful complements to my Interaction Design and Evaluating Interactive Systems course it does so in such a bland and boring manner that is all too common with school books. This book needs to be heavily edited for redundancy, to improve clarity and to overall be less of a snore so it can actually articulate the helpful information within without putting the reader to sleep.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I assigned this book for my Human Computer Interaction course this semester. I like that it has a lot of relevant examples, and it focuses on important aspects of the field instead of trying to cover everything. It is a good overview, with enough meat to support a semester introductory HCI course. I wish their activities didn't have the answers on the same page though, as it makes it difficult to ask students to think through them as they read; it doesn't encourage independent thought. I also have mixed feelings about the chapter orderings; I like that evaluation was toward the back of the book as I just redesigned my course to fall in that order, but I still had to jump around in the second half of the course to get material in an order that made the most sense. However, I currently like it better than the Shneiderman textbook I used to use, and plan to use it again in the future.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good stuff, but various examples were too subjective and didn't really cover most of the cases.
I have skipped some parts, I have to admit, since they were not useful to my research.

[Jenifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful tool as I study HCID

[Calvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with wonderful examples, case studies and online material.

[Cold · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tries to define a new discipline, but ends up barely reaching under-graduate level in a diverse set of topics. The book starts by trying to understand humans, the task of the whole of the social sciences, and ends up rocketing off chapters on Behaviour, Emotion, Social Relations etc. It is something only a computer science adjacent field could do.

Still the book has some strong points. The chapter on emotional computing was great. I also like how the book provides a light summary of a bunch of research methods. I would set this for a new interdisciplinary PhD student who needed to see the scope of available quant and qual methods. Its also a great introduction to the language of design.

I don't know, some people will love it for the interdisciplinary vision, but it read like a bunch of cheap shortcuts to me. Hey ho.

[Trừng Duyên · Rating 1 out of 5]

Đây quả là một câu chuyện buồn. Ước gì cuối mỗi chương có phần tóm tắt và đặt câu hỏi để focus trọng tâm một xíu. Ngoài ra sách nhiều chỗ lan man hoặc do không hợp với khiếu đọc của mình, đọc sách thấy chả áp dụng được mấy. Giờ đọc mới thấy học một đằng sách một nẻo. Mà ước gì có nhiều ví dụ thực tiễn hơn, càng đọc càng chán nhưng vẫn phải đọc vì mai thi cuối kì...
This is a sad story. It is good if at the end of each chapter there is a summary and a question to focus a little. In addition, many books are rampant or not suitable for my reading hobby, studying in this books cannot apply to the reality. Now I realize that learning is a path and what was written in this book is a kind of another path.
The most unlikely is that the examples are not new, so easy to get bored.

[Ash · Rating 1 out of 5]

Keeps explaining concepts like as if the reader is a 3 year old. Not surprising considering the average IQ of anyone that finds HCI an interesitng enough field of study worth reading a book about. It's like trying to shoehorn common sense into the minds of individuals that clearly lack it. This book is a joke. Name something obvious as "x" now slightly make it sound like you know what you are talking about, make it sound like it's some revolutionary idea, and boom, you get this book. Pile of garbage, very few parts of it is actually useful. Looses all credibility when it first mentions "twitch," written by gaming nerds. Has a whole chapter dedicated to "social-interaction," even for a CS book this is down bad.

[Amjad Bakir · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as part of a course's material in university. This book does a good job providing an understanding about usability, user experience and the interaction design process.
The problem with it is that it sometimes feels a bit repetitive and some stuff are totally unnecessary.

[Damir Helez]

Q

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, but crammed full of clunky terminology that's not explained very well.

[Tom Quast · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough book about interaction design. It is textbooklike, somewhat dry and not meant to be read in one go, but if you use it for self study or similar it has presents many valuable concepts and methodologies.

The Good
- Covers a lot
- Summaries help to internalize learnings
- Includes many activities and assignments

The Bad
- Includes many activities and assignments
- 750+ pages

Conclusion
If you are studying interaction design it is one of the best books to get. However, if you want to read the book from front to back it will hinder the flow, since it is structured in these lessons.

[Yokusun Basi]

Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction by Jenny Preece (2002)

[Yong Qing Ru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for a course. Great overview of the whole UX field, from a more scientific and theoretical lens. Might not be so applicable in practice but I believe knowing some theories do help

[Derek Baldwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a set book for my OU module and while I stand by my earlier progress review the Achilles heel is how outdated it is. Its a quick moving field, of course, but the examples are sometimes quite laughably lame, and what the text implies are bold new web initiatives turn out to be defunct on more than one occasion. Having read a fair bit of the book now, in a non linear fashion, i have to say its pitched too low (e.g. explaining what the difference is between open and closed questions, gee, thanks!) and very very repetitive. The text repeats itself a lot too.

[Karla Kitalong]

I've assigned this book for my undergraduate course. It's hefty, but focused on usability/user-centered design, so I hope it will be a good choice. I'm not totally comfortable with the order of the chapters. Because I read the last 25% in 2011, and because I'll read it again alongside the students, I'm counting it as a 2011 book.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

A set text from my recent degree, which I had to skip through to complete the study module within the time set. Having re-read it in detail I cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone who wants a detailed understanding of Interaction Design processes.

The book comes with a great set of online study aids also, including video, powerpoint, and lots and lots of recommended further reading.

[Sarismartinez]

Great textbook to understand the psychology of humans interacting with technology. How humans need to communicate within each other, getting involved emotionally utilizing technology as a very powerful tool.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a set text this has proved very useful, although many of the reference sources are now out of date. This has proved a very thought-provoking and interesting introduction to the science of human computer interaction.

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't a strong subject for me; I enjoy reading about new interface models but find the best practices to be terribly boring. I do, however, want to recognize what a well-constructed textbook this is.

[Emil · Rating 5 out of 5]

At my university we have the course "Interaction Design", where this book is reading material. I don't find the course too exciting, but the books is totally worth reading while taking the course. It covers a lot of areas.

[Jan D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, its an academic introductory textbook – but a good one. The formatting makes sense, there are many illustrations and it does justice to its topic that is a strange mix of psychology, anthropology, computer science and design.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. It is easy to understand and to teach to other people.

[Sondre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Felt like an encyclopaedia of terms and definitions from the field of interaction design, and did not provide any further insight into the field. What I found somewhat interesting was the occasional historic information and the interviews with various interaction design pioneers.

[kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading for HCI 440 - Usability Engineering.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reading this book for a class of the same name. So far I really like it. Easy to read with good information. I wish the class I read it for was as good as the book.

[Marty Tormoe Yo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a very good book if you are in this field. I agree with most of their research though it is quickly becoming dated.

[Norah Shalhoub · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it, it helps you to know how to develop interactive products that are usable -effective to use-.