 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | The recurring metaphor in The Inmates are Running the Asylum is that of the dancing bear--the circus bear that shuffles clumsily for the amusement of the audience. Such bears, says author Alan Cooper, don't dance well, as everyone at the circus can see. What amazes the crowd is that the bear dances at all. Cooper argues that technology (videocassette recorders, car alarms, most software applications for personal computers) consists largely of dancing bears--pieces that work, but not at all well. He goes on to say that this is more often than not the fault of poorly designed user interfaces, and he makes a good argument that way too many devices (perhaps as a result of the designers' subconscious wish to bully the people who tormented them as children) ask too much of their users. Too many systems (like the famous unprogrammable VCR) make their users feel stupid when they can't get the job done. Cooper, who designed Visual Basic (the programming environment Microsoft promotes for the purpose of creating good user interfaces), indulges in too much name-dropping and self-congratulation (Cooper attributes the quote, "How did you do that?" to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, upon looking at one of Cooper's creations)--but this appears to be de rigueur in books about the software industry. But those asides are minor. More valuable is the discourse about software design and implementation ("[O]bject orientation divides the 1000-brick tower into 10 100-brick towers."). Read this book for an idea of what's wrong with UI design. --David Wall Topics covered: User interfaces--good ones and bad ones--and where they come from. Also, how to improve the ones you create. |
Average Customer Rating:   Way overrated In graduate school this book was considered "must reading". I'm not sure why. Sitting down and reading this book from beginning to end would be a waste of time. This book is often credited with popularizing the use of "personas". Many who work in industry will tell you that personas are costly, time consuming and ultimately unhelpful. In short, they are a waste of time. I personally believe that UCD will start to go more in the direction of activity-centered design, following the lead of the likes of Donald Norman, Robert Hoekman and Jared Spool. Personas will likely prove to be little more than a UCD passing fad. Good case for interaction design, great for newbies Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity
by Alan Cooper, SAMS, 1999
Cooper wanted to provide with this book a business case for improved UI design. He wanted to make a case that there was a strong need for improved interaction design. The case no doubt stands as strong today as 10 years ago. While one sees progress at leading companies in terms of usability, the sheer abundance and explosion of human/computer interaction has no doubt caused the friction and frustration with poorly designed interfaces to increase rather than decrease.
Cooper has also written "how-to" books on interaction design: "About Face" in which he describes the techniques to come to good "interaction" design. If you're looking for techniques, it is no doubt more worthwhile to investigate "About Face".
In the "Inmates", Cooper raises several very worthwhile insights and approaches. Professionals in the industry will definitely connect with the messages and follow Cooper's reasoning. Design will reduce the number of iterations needed to come to a good product, and will reduce your overall time and cost needed. We know this, but do not necessarily do this in all projects. Which is why Cooper advocates the strong integration of design in your culture and processes. And why he wrote the book in the first place.
Yet, at the same time, Cooper's tone and stance towards engineers and programmers could easily be seen as alienating and by some even as arrogant. Which, in the end, somewhat diminishes the goal of the book. The goal after all is to influence the professional software community, existing mostly out of engineers and programmers. In my summary, I left out most of these comments when Cooper gets somewhat carried away about how software engineers are wired differently ('homo logicus').
In the end, it is a light and easy-to-read, often amusing book which is making a good case for the strongly-needed discipline of design. If you're not familiar with the topic, it is no doubt worth your time.
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A must read for anyone who has their hands in the software development process This book was really eye opening to me. Showing how different software engineering is from traditional (civil, mechanical, electrical, etc.) in the sense that you are creating an ever evolving product. Though it also shows how we need to be treating it more like traditional engineering by going into the development process with more of a blueprint how how it should interact with the user. Imagine trying to build a house without blueprints! This is how I and most (if not all) other programmers that I know develop.
This book is not just for the developers out there, in fact it's only marginally for them. This book is aimed at managers of the software development process. Basically managers need to understand that more (some?) time needs to be placed on how the program will interact with *users* before it is sent to the developers.
Though with that said all people involved in the process of software development need to be aware of this shortcoming that is so often found in the development process. for fun but not educational. You have to remember this book is written ~a decade ago. Some information is a bit old. It is ok to read.
However, as a engineering student, I feel that he shouldn't place all the fault on the engineers. My impression of the book is that all the hassles and faults with computer lies with software engineers and managers, none on the users because you shouldn't have to learn it, ppl should know how to use it immediately.
Read it for fun, there are some informative part, but take them with a grain of salt. Great book - Makes a passionate case to move from developer cetric to customer centric Great book - Makes a passionate case to move from developer cetric to customer centric. This the book that introduced the incredibly useful notion on Personas to the hitech world. |  |
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