In the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL refused to carry out Dave's command to open the pod bay door. Like Dave, users every day run into examples of computers that stubbornly refuse to open a particular file, locate a Web site, or carry out a requested command. Why does this problem arise? Although hardware and software bugs account for some user frustrations, many problems are due to miscommunication--a breakdown in the human-computer interface. Donald Norman's Things That Make Us Smart : Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine (Addison-Wesley, 1994) is a book about how technology could enhance human intelligence, but only if it is user-friendly.

Today's graphical user interfaces have come a long way toward making computers usable. Many people believe that GUIs were "invented" for Apple computers, because Apple's Macintosh was the first commercially successful computer with a GUI. In fact, GUIs evolved from Alan Kay's 1970 vision of the "Dynabook"--a portable, personal computer much like today's notebook computers and PDAs. The Web site ACM SIGCHI: HCI-Related Sites is a good gateway to links on user interfaces.

Additional Links

The Design Challenge  Donald A. Norman's The Psychology of Everyday Things was published in 1988, but what he wrote about product design is timeless. In this section of the book he considers what is wrong and right about user interfaces. Norman helps lead a distributed learning company called UNext.com, is a consultant with the Nielsen Norman Group, is a former executive at Apple Computer, and is professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, where he was founding chair of the Department of Cognitive Science.

Douglas Engelbart Biography   Douglas Engelbart's work was instrumental in the development of the first windows- and mouse-type computer environments. You can read a biographical sketch of Engelbart at this page from the Electronic Labyrinth.

Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII)   According to Carnegie Mellon University's Human Computer Interaction Institute you need to have a deep understanding of computer technology and an equally deep understanding of how people learn, work, play, and interact to develop computer technologies that will serve the needs of people. At this Web site, you can learn more about the HCII's multi-disciplinary staff and its research into human-computer interaction, which includes developing new graphical user interfaces.

Euphoria: The Programmer's Playground   At this Web site, you can explore the features and capabilities of Euphoria, a user interface management system. With this system, non-programmers can create graphical user interfaces for all types of applications, from interactive animations to multi-user GUIs over the Internet, to simulations, and so on.

User Interface Index   This Web page provides plenty of links to books, magazines, newsgroups, and organizations you can explore to learn more about human-computer interfaces.