The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability and Productivity: Amazon.co.uk: Thomas K Landauer: Books

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"Everyone who has ever stood in line as a clerk [and] fussed over a finicky,computerized check-out machine, or wondered why computers seem tocomplicate life instead of simplifying it, will appreciate Landauer'scleanly argued and thoroughly readable book." Elizabeth Corcoran , Washington Post

Product Description

Despite enormous investments in computers over the last twenty years, productivity in the very service industries at which they were aimed virtually stagnated everywhere in the world.If computers are not making businesses, organizations, or countries more productive, then why are we spending so much time and money on them? Cutting through a raft of technical data, Thomas Landauer explains and illustrates why computers are in trouble and why massive outlays for computing since 1973 have not resulted in comparable productivity payoffs. Citing some of his own successful research programs, as well as many others, Landauer offers solutions to the problems he describes.While acknowledging that mismanagement, organizational barriers, learning curves, and hardware and software incompatibilities can play a part in the productivity paradox, Landauer targets individual utility and usability as the main culprits. He marshals overwhelming evidence that computers rarely improve the efficiency of the information work they are designed for because they are too hard to use and do too little that is sufficiently useful. Their many features, designed to make them more marketable, merely increase cost and complexity. Landauer proposes that emerging techniques for user-centered development can turn the situation around. Through task analysis, iterative design, trial use, and evaluation, computer systems can be made into powerful tools for the service economy.Landauer estimates that the application of these methods would make computers have the same enormous impact on productivity and standard of living that were the historical results of technological advances in energy use (the steam engine, electric motors), automation in textiles and other manufacture, and in agriculture. He presents solid evidence for this claim, and for a huge benefit-to-cost ratio for user-centered design activities backed by descriptions of how to do these necessary things, of promising applications for better computer software designs in business, and of the relation of user-centered design to business process reengineering, quality, and management.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

an anecdotal collection, no "true scientific research" here 7 Aug 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

One of the first clarions of the so-called computer "Productivity Paradox", this report is often cited by other unsubstantiated, anecdotal "studies". But there is no "true scientific research" here. Written in 1994 (or '93), published in 1995 (with the fourth printing in "97), it must necessarily ignore the enormous impact of the Web. And like similar tales of "Productivity Paradox" it fundamentally ignores that their incorrect conclusions are based on more than twenty five years of data "category error" (insufficient definitions). Hence the recent NAICS data corrections reflect the enormous economic impact that previously was denied.

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Debunks the myth that computers always improve things. 11 Nov 1997

Landauer has good credentials to be talking about what's wrong with computers. He talks about the two main phases in computer history: 1)The 50s and 60s where bookkeepers were replaced in great numbers and 2) The 70s and 80s when word processors and spreadsheets came of age. He says that the productivity improvements in the first phase are obvious, but the results from the 2nd are dubious in terms of economic gain. He does point to a few big recent successes such as the communications industry. This book came out just before the Web became big, however. Landauer describes software testing methods in detail and believes better testing could make the difference in current software user productivity. He includes lots of memorable statements, at least to programmer types. He mentions that nowadays many people do things with computers simply because they can, not because it makes sense. He also points out how people pump money into PCs getting them to do things badly, which are easy and cheap to do by other means, just because they are so amazed a computer can do them.

A must read for any developer or IS person 9 Feb 1997

In a relatively short book, Mr. Landauer has brought to focus much of the ill-conceived notions of the computer industry as well as it's failings. For anyone who reads "trade rags" and wonders if it is at all realistic, one MUST read this book.

It's filled with real-world examples, and true scientific research that brings home the points made in the book.

To avoid the same pitfalls in your projects you should see what everyone else had done wrong.