Suggested Readings in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), User Interface (UI) Development, & Human Factors (HF)
by Gary Perlman
Copyright ©1993-2001 Gary Perlman. All rights reserved.

Last updated: 2001-11-12
Accesses since 2001-07-18: 59,093

Table of Contents

Introduction

This list is part of:
The HCI Bibliography
This reading list is available on the World-Wide Web at:
http://www.hcibib.org/readings.html
You can send comments to the maintainer at:
perlman@acm.org
Books ordered through the links to amazon.com will result in a royalty that will be donated entirely to BuckCHI, the Central Ohio ACM SIGCHI Chapter.

Broader Categories of Books and Proceedings

Independent of what I have read and can recommend, here are some links to information about HCI publications from recent years. (Click on the ISBN to order from amazon.com or on the publisher name if it is hot).
HCI Books 2000  |  1999  |  1998  |  1997  |  1996  |  1995
HCI Conference Proceeedings 2000  |  1999  |  1998  |  1997  |  1996  |  1995
HCI Topic Area Books Accessibility  |  CSCW  |  Hypertext  |  Internationalization  |  Kids
HCI Bibliography Logo Gary Perlman. The HCI Bibliography. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1989-.
This collection of recommended books for user interface developers is based on searches of The HCI Bibliography, a free-access online bibliography on Human-Computer Interaction. Over 23,500 bibliographic entries on books, conference proceedings, journal articles, and internet resources can be accessed electronically. The bibliography contains the tables of contents of almost all of the books listed. Available on the Web at http://www.hcibib.org/ and via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.hcibib.org/ or in http://www.hcibib.org/ftp/ Send email to: director@hcibib.org.
:

Human-Computer Interaction -- General

  1. Book Cover Ronald M. Baecker & William A. S. Buxton (Editors). Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Los Altos, CA: Morgan-Kaufmann Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0-934613-24-9.
    This excellent collection of 59 papers (and those in the second edition) are integrated with clear and thought-provoking prose by the editors. This excellent introduction to the field is also a great value, making it the most used university text on HCI. Detailed table of contents is available via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.hcibib.org/baeck87.bib or on the web at: http://www.hcibib.org/ftp/baeck87.bib
  2. Book Cover Ronald M. Baecker, Jonathan Grudin, William A. S. Buxton & Saul Greenberg (Editors). Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000 (Second Edition). Los Altos, CA: Morgan-Kaufmann Publishers, 1995. ISBN 1-55860-246-1. amazon.com
    This new version is very different from the first and should be considered a different snapshot of the field. An excellent introduction to the field.
  3. Book Cover Stuart K. Card, Thomas P. Moran & Allen Newell. The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1983. ISBN 0-89859859-1 amazon.com
    This classic defines the early theoretical basis for HCI. It is primarily for researchers.
  4. Book Cover Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory Abowd & Russell Beale. Human-Computer Interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. ISBN 0-13-458266-7 (hardback); 0-13-437211-5 (paperback) only outside USA. 1998 (Second Edition) ISBN 0-13-239864-8. amazon.com
    This is a broad introduction to HCI, including a clear statement of a user interface development process. It should be useful to researchers in training and practitioners.

    There is a website for this book: http://www.hcibook.com/

  5. Book Cover Martin Helander (Editor). Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1988. ISBN 0-444-88673-7 (paper).
    This collection of 52 survey papers contains excellent reference material for both researchers and practitioners. The 1991 softcover edition is reasonably affordable. Detailed table of contents is available via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.hcibib.org/helander.bib. or on the web at: http://www.hcibib.org/ftp/helander.bib.
  6. Book Cover Martin Helander, Thomas Landauer, Prasad Prabhu (Editors). Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1997. ISBN 0-444-81862-6 (hardbound) amazon.com ISBN 0-444-81876-6 (paperback). amazon.com
    The second edition contains 62 papers and 1582 pages. See http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/isbn/0444818626
  7. Book Cover Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers, Helen Sharp, David Benyon, Simon Holland & Tom Carey. Human-Computer Interaction. Wokingham, UK: Addison Wesley, 1994. ISBN 0-201-62769-8. amazon.com
    This is the latest general HCI textbook. It is the first one to contain all the pedagogical features (examples, exercises, etc.) to make it good for undergraduate and graduate level use. Reviewed in SIGCHI Bulletin, 26:4, 82-84, 1994, available on the World-Wide Web at: http://www.acm.org/~perlman/preece.html.

HCI Education

  1. Book Cover ACM SIGCHI Curriculum Development Group. ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human Computer Interaction, New York: ACM, 1992. ISBN 0-89791-474-0; ACM Order Number 608920. The report is available on the WWW at: http://sigchi.org/cdg.
    This report defines the field of HCI, describes four courses and full programs in HCI, and provides resources for HCI education.
  2. Book Cover Gary Perlman. User Interface Development. Graduate Curriculum Module SEI-CM-17-1.1 Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie-Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute, 1989.
    This module covers the issues, information sources, and methods used in the design, implementation, and evaluation of user interfaces. Full text is available via anonymous ftp at: http://www.acm.org/~perlman/sei-module.txt.
  3. Book Cover Gary Perlman & Jean Gasen. HCI Education Survey. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1993.
    The 1993-94 HCI Education Survey contains information about programs, faculty, and courses with an emphasis on Human-Computer Interaction. Summary reports and data are available on the Web at: sigchi.org/educhi/. The HCI Webliography Education Page contains links to program pages.
  4. NSF Logo Gary Strong, et al. New Directions in HCI Education, Research, and Practice. Washington, DC: NSF/ARPA, 1994.
    A report based on an NSF/ARPA workshop held in Washington, DC in February 1994. Available on the World-Wide Web: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/community/hci/directions/

User Interface Development -- General

  1. Book Cover Deborah J. Mayhew The Usability Engineering Lifecycle: A Practitioner's Handbook for User Interface Design San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publshers, 1999. ISBN 1-55860-561-4. amazon.com
    This book presents material from a decade of Mayhew's consulting and tutorials. It is a complement to her book on Principles and Guidelines.
  2. Book Cover Deborah Hix & H. Rex Hartson. Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Product and Process. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1993. ISBN 0-471-57813-4. amazon.com
    This book generated a lot of positive reviews when it came out. The authors present a methodology for developing user interfaces, including their User Action Notation (UAN) for representing interaction between the user and the system.
  3. University of Colorado Logo Clayton Lewis & John Rieman. Task-Centered User Interface Design: A Practical Introduction. Boulder, Colorado: University of Colorado, Boulder, 1993.
    This is the first shareware book on UI design, and more importantly, it is a good practical guide to UI design and evaluation, making it a good choice for a supplementary text for software engineering courses. Text is available via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/cs/distribs/clewis/HCI-Design-Book/, with an HTML version on the World-Wide Web: http://hcibib.org/tcuid/.
  4. Book Cover Gary Perlman, Georgia K. Green, & Michael S. Wogalter (Eds.) Human Factors Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction: Selections from Proceedings of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meetings 1983-1994. Santa Monica, CA: HFES, 1995. ISBN 0-945289-05-7. amazon.com
    A collection of 79 papers selected from the HFES annual meetings on the basis of a focus on HCI (particularly user interface development), importance, usefulness, and soundness of methodology. Over 3500 papers were considered, of which 150 were chosen for re-review by 50 members of the HFES Computer Systems Technical Group. Contents
  5. Book Cover Ben Shneiderman. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction. (Second Edition ISBN 0-201-57286-9, 1992). (Third Edition, pp. 638, ISBN 0-201-69497-2, 1997). amazon.com Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.
    This popular textbook is in its third edition. Although it is a survey of user interface development, it can also be used as a guide for practitioners. There is a website for this book at: www.aw.com/DTUI.

User Interface Design -- Principles and Guidelines

  1. Book Cover C. Marlin "Lin" Brown. Human-Computer Interface Design Guidelines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1988. ISBN 0-89391-332-4.
    A good source of guidelines for graphical interfaces.
  2. Book Cover Alan Cooper. About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design. Foster City, CA: IDG Books, 1995. ISBN 0-56884-322-4. amazon.com
    A collection of insightful essays by the father of Visual basic. Every page has an example of a mistake in a real system and a better way to do it. Sometimes I laughed out loud.
  3. Book Cover Brenda Laurel (Editor). The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1990. ISBN: 0-201-51797-3. amazon.com
    This is a popular collection of inspiring readings on design.
  4. Deborah J. Mayhew. Principles and Guidelines in Software User Interface Design. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992. ISBN 0-13-721929-6. amazon.com
    This is an excellent practical guide for effective design.
  5. Book Cover Donald A. Norman. The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 1988. ISBN 0-465-06709-3. Also published as The Design of Everyday Things, 1990, Doubleday ISBN 0-385-26774-6 (paperback). amazon.com
    This is a very popular book on good (and bad) design of the devices with which we interact on a daily basis, and as such it provides insights and inspiration about how to design usable software.
  6. Book Cover Donald A. Norman & Stephen W. Draper (Editors) User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986. ISBN 0-89859-872-9 (paper). amazon.com
    This is an early set of readings that defined the idea of designing systems for users first.
  7. Richard Rubinstein & Harry Hersh. The Human Factor: Designing Computer Systems for People. Maynard, MA: Digital Press, 1984. ISBN 0-932376-44-4.
    Although a decade old, this book still meets its billing of helping design systems for people.
  8. Book Cover Sidney L. Smith & Jane N. Mosier. Guidelines for Designing User Interface Software. ESD-TR-86-278. Bedford, MA 01730: The MITRE Corporation, 1986. ISBN: 9992080418. amazon.com
    This set of guidelines is widely used in military systems, but is based on mid-80s technology with little on graphical user interfaces. Tagged text and PostScript are available via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/hci/Guidelines/.
  9. Book Cover Bruce Tognazzini. Tog on Interface. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1992. ISBN 0-201-60842-1. amazon.com
    A collection of inspiring columns by the user interface "evangelist" of the Apple Macintosh.
  10. Book Cover U.S. Department of Defense. Military Standard: Human Engineering Design Criteria for Military Systems, Equipment and Facilities. MIL-STD-1472D Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 14, 1989.
    Section 5.15 of this standard is largely drawn from the MITRE guidelines. Macintosh HyperCard stack is available via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/hci/1472/. It is available on CD-ROM as part of CASHE:PVS.
  11. Wanda J. Smith. ISO and ANSI Ergonomic Standards for Computer Products: A Guide to Implementation and Compliance. Prentice-Hall, 1996. ISBN 0-13-151119-X amazon.com
    Dr. Smith is the expert on ergonomic standards.

User Interface Development - Software

  1. Book Cover Len Bass & Joelle Coutaz. Developing Software for the User Interface. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1991. ISBN 0-201-51056-4. amazon.com
  2. Book Cover James D. Foley, Andries van Dam, Steven K. Feiner & John F. Hughes. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice (2nd Edition). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1990. ISBN 0-201-12110-7. amazon.com
    The second edition of this classic contains a few chapters on input and output devices and user interface architecture.
  3. Book Cover Dan R. Olsen, Jr. User Interface Management Systems: Models and Algorithms. Mountain View, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1992. ISBN 1-55860-220-8. amazon.com
  4. Book Cover Dan R. Olsen, Jr. Developing User Interfaces. Mountain View, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1998. ISBN 1-55860-418-9. amazon.com
    This is a book written for programmers of user interfaces. It explains the fundamental algorithms used in interactive graphical user interfaces.

User Interface Evaluation

  1. Book Cover Randolph G. Bias & Deborah J. Mayhew (Eds.) Cost-Justifying Usability. Boston: Academic Press, 1994. ISBN 0-12-095810-4. amazon.com
    This edited collection contains 14 chapters devoted to the demonstration of the importance of usability evaluation to the success of software development.
  2. Book Cover Joseph S. Dumas & Janice C. Redish. A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Ablex Publishing, 1993; ISBN 0-89391-991-8. Intellect, 1999 ISBN 1-84150-020-8 amazon.com
    This step-by-step guide provides checklists and offers insights for every stage of usability testing.
  3. Book Cover Jakob Nielsen. Usability Engineering. Boston, MA: Academic Press, 1993. ISBN 0-12-518405-0 (hardcover), 0-12-518406-9 (paperback). amazon.com
    This is a practical handbook for people who want to evaluate systems.
  4. Book Cover Jakob Nielsen & Robert L. Mack (Eds.) Usability Inspection Methods. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994. ISBN 0-471-01877-5. amazon.com
    This book contains chapters contributed by experts on usability inspections methods such as heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthroughs, and others.
  5. Book Cover Jakob Nielsen (Ed.) Usability Laboratories. Special issue of Behaviour and Information Technology, Vol. 13, Nos. 1-2, Taylor & Francis, 1994. ISSN 0144-929X.
    This collection of contributed papers describes thirteen usability laboratories, covering topics such as: building a usability laboratory, redesigning a usability laboratory, conducting evaluations, usability metrics, data analysis, and moving beyond the laboratory,
  6. Book Cover Jeffrey Rubin. Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests. New York: Wiley, 1994. ISBN 0-471-59403-2. amazon.com
    This book contains templates for usability lifecycle documents.
  7. Book Cover Robert L. Solso & Homer H. Johnson. An Introduction to Experimental Design in Psychology: A Case Approach. Fourth Edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. ISBN 0-06-046436-4. Fifth Edition (1994) 0-06501142-2 amazon.com Sixth Edition (1997) 0-32101146-5 amazon.com
    This little book is an excellent introduction to the logic of experimental design, confounding and controls for non-specialists.
  8. Book Cover Michael E. Wiklund (Ed.) Usability in Practice: How Companies Develop User-Friendly Products. Boston: Academic Press, 1994. ISBN 0-12-751250-0. amazon.com
    This collection of contributed chapters describes usability practices of 17 companies: American Airlines, Ameritech, Apple, Bellcore, Borland, Compaq, Digital, Dun & Bradstreet, Kodak, GE Information Services, GTE Labs, H-P, Lotus, Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, Thompson Consumer Electronics, and Ziff Desktop Information. It amounts to the broadest usability lab tour ever.

Styleguides for Specific Platforms

The following style guides define (or redefine) a standard to which all applications on that platform should conform. Thanks to Samu Mielonen (f1sami@uta.fi) Univ. of Tampere, Finland, for compiling an earlier version of the styleguide list.
  1. Book Cover Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1992. ISBN 0-201-62216-5. amazon.com
    There is an interactive animated companion CD-ROM to these Mac guidelines called "Making it Macintosh", Addison-Wesley, 1993. ISBN 0-201-62626-8. Available on the Web
  2. Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Amiga User Interface Style Guide. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1991. ISBN 0-201-57757-7. amazon.com
  3. GO Corporation. PenPoint User Interface Design Reference. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1992. ISBN 0-201-60858-8.
  4. Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sunsoft Inc. & USL. Common Desktop Environment: Functional Specification (Preliminary Draft). X/Open Company Ltd., 1993. ISBN 1-85912-001-6.
  5. Book Cover IBM. Object-Oriented Interface Design: IBM Common User Access Guidelines. Carmel, Indiana: Que, 1992. ISBN 1-56529-170-0.
  6. James Martin, Kathleen Kavanagh Chapman & Joe Leben. Systems Application Architecture: Common User Access. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991. ISBN 0-13-785023-9.
  7. Book Cover Microsoft Corporation (Tandy Trower) The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1995. ISBN 1-55615-679-0. amazon.com
  8. Book Cover Microsoft Corporation The Micorsoft Windows User Experience. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1999. ISBN 0-7356-0566-1 amazon.com | Available Online
  9. Book Cover Microsoft Corporation. The Windows Interface: An Application Design Guide. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1992. ISBN 1-55615-384-8.
    This guide addresses the old Windows 3.x interface.
  10. Book Cover Microsoft Corporation (Nadine Kano) Developing International Software for Windows 95 and Windows NT. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1995. ISBN 1-55615-840-8. amazon.com
    Superseding: The GUI Guide: International Terminology for the Windows Interface. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1993. ISBN 1-55615-538-7. Available online from Microsoft
  11. Book Cover Open Software Foundation. OSF/Motif Style Guide. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. ISBN 0-13-643123-2. amazon.com
  12. NeXT Logo NeXT Computer, Inc. NeXTSTEP User Interface Guidelines (Release 3). Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1992. ISBN 0-201-63250-0. amazon.com
  13. Sun Microsystems, Inc. OPEN LOOK Graphical User Interface Application Style Guidelines. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1989. ISBN 0-201-52364-7. amazon.com
  14. Sun Microsystems, Inc. OPEN LOOK Graphical User Interface Functional Specification. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1989. ISBN 0-201-52365-5.

Human Factors and Ergonomics

The readings in this section are mainly useful as background on applied psychology, particularly perceptual and cognitive psychology. Although the information is difficult to apply directly to user interface development (say, compared to a good GUI styleguide), a better understanding of the human side of the interface (the user in the user interface), human capabilities and limitations, is useful to understand why design choices are made, and how to make better choices.
  1. AAMRL Logo Kenneth R. Boff & Janet E. Lincoln (Editors). Engineering Data Compendium: Human Perception and Performance. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio: Harry G. Armstrong Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory, 1988. amazon.com
    This report gathers and digests thousands of studies and is a great resource for designers concerned with HP&P. It is available on CD-ROM as part of CASHE:PVS.
  2. Book Cover Barry H. Kantowitz & Robert D. Sorkin. Human Factors: Understanding People-System Relationships. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1983. ISBN 0-471-09594-X. A good HF text, but from 1983.
  3. Book Cover Robert W. Proctor & Trisha Van Zandt. Human Factors in Simple and Complex Systems. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1994. ISBN 0-205-13999-X. amazon.com
    A good applied psychology book, with foundational material on methods, human information processing, and classical human factors issues (error, response compatibility, control, etc.). Chapter 20 on HCI is disappointing, with most references preceding 1988 and little material on present day issues, so look to the other chapters for useful material.
  4. Book Cover Gavriel Salvendy (Editor). Handbook of Human Factors. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-88015-9 (1st edition), 1987.
    The first edition was an excellent collection of 68 chapters (over 1800 pages) covering a wide range of human factors specialties. Detailed table of contents is available via anonymous ftp at: ftp://ftp.hcibib.org/salvendy.bib or on the web at: http://www.hcibib.org/ftp/salvendy.bib
  5. Book Cover Gavriel Salvendy (Editor). Handbook of Human Factors. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-11690-4 (2nd edition), 1997. amazon.com
    The second edition contains 60 chapters (over 2100 pages) with more chapters on HCI.
  6. Book Cover Mark S. Sanders. & Ernest J. McCormick Human Factors in Engineering and Design. 7th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1993. ISBN 0-07-054901-X.
    Perhaps the most popular human factors text, but with little material for user interface developers, because the covered technology is about 10 years behind the publication date.

Graphic Design

Disclaimer: I am not a graphic designer, but anyone working on user interfaces has to deal with many issues of graphic design, and many books on graphic design are often promoted within the HCI community. The following books are ones that I think are worth recommending, but in no way should they be held responsible for my graphic designs.
  1. Book Cover William S. Cleveland. The Elements of Graphing Data. Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-03730-5 1985. amazon.com
    This book has a chapter that covers good graphing practices.
  2. Book Cover Aaron Marcus. Graphic Design for Electronic Documents and User Interfaces. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (ACM Press), 1992. ISBN 0-201-54363-9; ACM Order number 703900. amazon.com
    This book contains many examples and includes a comparative study of graphical user interfaces on different platforms.
  3. Book Cover Kevin Mullet and Darrell Sano. Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques. Sunsoft Press. ISBN 0-13-303389-9 1995. amazon.com
    This book presents an unusually coherent analysis of visual communication techniques as applied to user interfaces.
  4. Book Cover Edward Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Graphics Press. 0-9613921-0-X 1983. amazon.com
    Tufte (pronounced "TUFF-tee") set the field on the right course in this landmark book, emphasizing form and substance in graphical presentation.
  5. Book Cover Edward Tufte. Envisioning Information. Graphics Press. ISBN 0-9613921-1-8. 1990. amazon.com
    In this second book, Tufte provides more of a theoretical base for information presentation.
    Edward Tufte. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative Graphics Press. ISBN 0-9613921-2-6. 1997. amazon.com
    I haven't seen this book, but I want to.

Web Design

  1. book cover Lynch and Horton. Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites. 1999.
    The Yale Web Style Guide is a widely-used comprehensive style guide. It is available online and in print from Amazon.com.
  2. W3C World_wide Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). 1999-.
    The WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines describe how to make Web pages more accessible to people with disabilities. A set of checkpoints and techniques are extremely valuable.
  3. cover art Rosenfeld and Morville. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. 1998.
    Rosenfeld and Morville apply library science to Web site design and a readable and highly applicable book. They started the Argus Center for Information Architecture and their book is available from Amazon.com/
  4. NCI National Cancer Institute. Research-Based Web Design and Usability Guidelines. 2000-.
    http://usability.gov/guidelines/.
  5. Keith Instone. Usable Web. 1998-.
    Keith Instone's Usable Web organizes over 1400 links to resources on making the Web more usable. http://usableweb.com/.