<p>Difficult to learn and awkward to use, today's information systems often change our activities in ways that we do not need or want. The problem lies in the software development process. In this book John Carroll shows how a pervasive but underused element of design practice, the scenario, can transform information systems design. Traditional textbook approaches manage the complexity of the design process via abstraction, treating design problems as if they were composites of puzzles. Scenario-based design uses concretization. A scenario is a concrete story about use. For example: "A person turned on a computer; the screen displayed a button labeled Start; the person used the mouse to select the button." Scenarios are a vocabulary for coordinating the central tasks of system development-understanding people's needs, envisioning new activities and technologies, designing effective systems and software, and drawing general lessons from systems as they are developed and used. Instead of designing software by listing requirements, functions, and code modules, the designer focuses first on the activities that need to be supported and then allows descriptions of those activities to drive everything else.In addition to a comprehensive discussion of the principles of scenario-based design, the book includes in-depth examples of its application.</p>

Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions

Computers & Technology

Carroll, John M. M.

Computer Science

The MIT Press

Interfacing Thought consolidates and presents theoretically important cognitive science research in the new and intensely active domain of human-computer interaction. It is a valuable survey of the whole range of problems and tasks in this growing field.The twelve essays focus on the design of "user interfaces," or computers as experienced and manipulated by human users, showing how human motivation, action, and experience place constraints on the usability of computer equipment. In confronting the challenge of developing an applied science of human-computer interaction grounded in the framework of cognitive science, the essays make basic contributions to the development of cognitive science itself.John M. Carroll is Manager of Advisory Interfaces at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He is coeditor, with Thomas G. Bever and Lance A. Miller, of Talking Minds: The Study of Language in the Cognitive Sciences, an MIT Press paperback. A Bradford Book.

Interfacing Thought: Cognitive Aspects of Human-Computer Interaction (Mit Press)

Web Development & Design

MIT Press]

The Neighborhood in the Internet: Design Research Projects in Community Informatics (Routledge Advances in Sociology)

Today, "community" seems to be everywhere. At home, at work, and online, the vague but comforting idea of the community pervades every area of life. But have we lost the ability truly to understand what it means? The Neighborhood in the Internet investigates social and civic effects of community networks on local community, and how community network designs are appropriated and extended by community members.   Carroll uses his conceptual model of "community" to re-examine the Blacksburg Electronic Village – the first Web-based community network – applying it to attempts to sustain and enrich contemporary communities through information technology. The book provides an analysis of the role of community in contemporary paradigms for work and other activity mediated by the Internet. It brings to the fore a series of design experiments investigating new approaches to community networking and addresses the future trajectory and importance of community networks.  This book will be of interest to students of sociology, community psychology, human-computer interaction, information science, and computer-supported collaborative work.

The Neighborhood in the Internet (Routledge Advances in Sociology)

Reference

Routledge

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