Practical HCI

For now, this is simply a list of links to interesting things people have written on the subject of human computer interaction.

The interface hall of shame. Excellent site, a bit out of date but shows the essential disrespect for Microsoft that any HCI site should do. This is the Stupidity section - there are many more sections showing appalling interfacing. Congratulations, humans!

Review of The Media Equation (Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass). This is a fascinating book subtitled How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media. Its premise is that we haven't evolved to differentiate between responsive machines and living organisms.

They're not Just for Play. Gamers have plenty of human computer interaction. Here's a Harrow Technology Report discussing whether massive-user games are good or bad for the psychology of the emerging human generation.

Article from a US doctors' journal pointing out that most of us find the pace of technological change too furious these days. The article eventually goes wandering off into the head of the writer, but otherwise it's pretty good.

HCI Bibliography. A popular site with many HCI links. Personally, I think the usability of this site is poor, and lots of other HCI sites suffer from the same problem. How about that for irony?

British HCi Group. This too was a poor site, but now it's remarkably cool. Not a bad place to begin investigating HCI.

If you have a very strong sense of irony, you might like to view (and listen to) this air disaster footage of a computer attempting to fly a plane.

Here on TinHat there's a page closely related to HCI, on Computers and Society.

And finally, TinHat has a new section devoted to Web site usability.