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Anthropology-based computing : putting the human in human-computer interaction
Brown J., Springer International Publishing, New York, NY, 2016. 243 pp. Type: Book (978-3-319244-19-8)
Date Reviewed: Apr 10 2017

Human-computer interaction (HCI) is perhaps built on basic tenets of software engineering principles in which the user is the central character. Various models have evolved and in every endeavor there are attempts to enhance the usability, usefulness, and actual use of the software developed. With the advancement of scientific innovations and interventions, software has been part of hardware and device-oriented services are embedded for better HCI. HCI brings in interesting collaborations between architectures of service orientation (SoA), software, and devices. Broadly, computing infrastructures are developed and used as tools for the development of humans and society. Therefore, computers are needed to meet desired objectives. This shift has been challenging computing architects to translate supply-driven interventions to demand-driven uses. HCI broadly contributes to these ever-dynamic situations where users collaborate in the life cycle of computing infrastructure.

HCI has thrown open the discourse on how software engineers could or should take note of user behaviors and reflect these in the software so as to provide a decent life cycle. Life cycle management is a great challenge in software engineering, and HCI has attempted to understand user behavior by studying anthropological issues of humans. Anthropological studies and analyses provide the scope for software engineers to map sociocultural aspects of human responses to certain circumstances. Such a mapping exercise is likely to identify the right technologies and tools to encourage use. This inclusiveness is well articulated in anthropology and has great scope to combine with HCI studies.

The book has very rightly defined the broad contours of the relationships between anthropology-based studies of human behavior and mapped these to HCI. The book is a great resource to not only introduce the subject from a historical perspective, but also to expose readers to the subject supported by experience-based examples analogous to the HCI environment. It successfully details human behaviors and maps them to the computing environment with a multidisciplinary approach derived from the disciplines of psychology, medicine, neuroscience, ergonomics, biomechanics, and so on. The book also discusses various models, including software, hardware, environment, liveware (SHELL), and synchronizing natural actions and reacting knowledgeably (SNARK), to introduce novelty in the area of HCI. The subject is introduced, various models are explored, and those models are experimented with to derive results. The abstract and summary in each chapter provide the desired focus and help the reader glean the most important information.

The book, quite contemporary in nature, provides the reader with a comprehensive view on HCI. The attempt to relate “the components based and analyzed behavior of the human body” to computing is noteworthy. However, readability is largely lost in many chapters due to the overuse of graphics and related discussions. Discussions on tools supported by the algorithms would have clarified the appropriateness of the experiments presented in the book. Because HCI has been pursued over a long period of time, the references seem to be inadequate; in certain chapters, direct references to an article interfere with readability. Lastly, putting humans first in HCI is a great statement, and it would have been nice to discuss the challenges that HCI would face in terms of the digital divide society is grappling with. In this context, real examples of the cognitive and predictive behavior of nature and the environment that humans are exposed to could have contributed immensely to the area of HCI.

Overall, however, the book will generate interest from researchers pursuing HCI who are involved in experimentation. With regard to practitioners, though this book will be a disappointment because of readability concerns and too many subjective examples, it could definitely help with using the models of tools.

Reviewer:  Harekrishna Misra Review #: CR145180 (1706-0350)
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  Reviewer Selected
 
 
User Interfaces (H.5.2 )
 
 
Social And Behavioral Sciences (J.4 )
 
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