Book Review

The Invisible Computer

Norman, D. A. (1999). The invisible computer. MIT Press: Boston, MA.

The Invisible Computer, by Donald A. Norman, purports to be a discussion of the "next generation" of computing devices, namely information appliances, and what corporate cultural and organizational changes must take place in order for such devices to become commonplace. In the preface, Mr. Norman describes in three words, the holy grail of computing, a device that follows three basic design principles, "simplicity, versatility, and pleasurability." While those three words certainly left me with a yearning to quickly read on, the next 183 pages (i.e. the first eight chapters) left me wondering if Mr. Norman was ever going to actually discuss such a device. Not until Chapter Nine was there even a glimpse of a discussion regarding information appliances, and while the last few chapters were interesting, the pleasure was much diminished by the pain of getting to them.

Summarizing the book would be a difficult task, as the chapters didn’t often thread well together, although Mr. Norman attempts to draw them together by periodically repeating, almost word for word, "the way a product is developed, designed , and marketed has to change radically as a product moves from its early youth to maturity." The first chapter deals with Thomas Edison’s various failed forays into the phonograph business, while the second chapter jumps to a discussion of the current syndrome of feature bloated software and how technology, marketing, and user experience affect the design of a product. The next few chapters meander through examples of pseudo information appliances, discussions of the problem with current PCs, and the realization that there is no "silver bullet" that will fix the problem. The book then jumps to a discussion of infrastructure and corporate culture, and how human beings don’t fit well in a digital world.

Finally, in Chapters Nine and Ten we get to some interesting discussion of "human centered development," where all facets of an organization, from the engineers to the quality assurance and technical writers are involved in the design of the product. In Chapter Twelve, the grand finale as it were, we are almost treated to some interesting examples of information appliances. Unfortunately, the book ends with a whimper, rather than a bang, leaving you to thumb through the appendices to get a feel for some possible information appliances.

For those interested in obscure, almost Luddite-like references to the evils of technology and how marketing is more important the good technology, I would highly recommend the first eight chapters. For those of you that aren’t really into that, skip to page 184. You may not understand a few of the references to earlier chapters, but they aren’t pivotal to the thread of the last chapters, and what you miss won’t be worth the plodding pace of the first eight chapters.