The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity |
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| Title: | The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity |
| Author: | Thomas K. Landauer |
| Publisher: | The MIT Press |
| Type: | Book / Paperback |
| Publication Date: | 06 June, 1996 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0262621088 / 9780262621083 |
| List Price: | $35.00 |
| You Save: | $6.37 |
| Amazon Price: | $28.63 |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
"Everyone who has ever stood in line as a clerk [and] fussed over a finicky, computerized check-out machine, or wondered why computers seem to complicate life instead of simplifying it, will appreciate Landauer's cleanly argued and thoroughly readable book." -- Elizabeth Corcoran, Washington Post 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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Customer Reviews:
• An Anecdotal Collection, No "true Scientific Research" Here
07 August, 1999
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.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Argument In Peril
12 October, 2005
This book takes the position that increasing technological infrastructure and investing in higher information technology does not increase productivity. The argument is complete hokum from beginning to end; however, it is very convincing due to the large amount of evidence presented and the prestige of the pseudoscientist promulgating it.
Most of the evidence presented exemplifies the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which should be obvious to any logician or scientist reading it. However, several more subtle fallacies are also present. The subtlety comes in by virtue of the author failing to define `productivity.'
First, the author measures productivity using GDP. This is analogous to using the physics definition of work when you ask a man who's spent all day trying to tip over a mountain, "Why are you so tired? The mountain hasn't moved, therefore you haven't done any work!" GDP is a measure of output in terms of dollars. It does not measure work done, just how much was sold.
Second, the author uses return on assets to analyze investments in new equipment. Now, I'm no expert in finance, but since assets is in the denominator, using ROA in the way this author does (the ROA of the firm, not the investment decision) would systematically understate the positive effects of these investments. Net Present Value or Internal Rate of Return would both be much better measures.
Third, and this is related to the second point, the author compares firms to what they were in the past (before investing in technology) or to other, dissimilar firms. The relevant comparison is between a firm's current profitability and what the current profitability would have been if not for the investment. The common form of this reasoning is: XYZ Corp. made a huge technological investment in 1986, and experienced no rise in productivity (as measured by ROA). This ignores the possibility that the whole industry became more competitive, and failing to invest in the technology could have led to bankruptcy.
In a related issue, he completely ignores rising standards. His argument is equivalent to, Finding Nemo did not make significantly more money than The Lion King. Therefore, enhanced technology did not increase productivity. This is incorrect because productivity is a measure of work done over time, not money made. If animators tried to make a film with the graphics quality of Finding Nemo by hand, it would have taken several orders of magnitude longer, if it was even possible! The fact is, the animators, like so many workers in society, get far more done today than they used to, they just don't get paid anymore to do it, which is actually an argument for the value of technology.
I gave up on it shortly thereafter.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Cogent And Constructive
24 March, 2000
"The Trouble with Computers" is an eye-opening book, clearly giving a case for the thesis: Computers are difficult to use because insufficient effort is made to test programs for usability (i.e. how easy a program is for a human to use, not just whether it performs technically as expected by the programmers). Great improvements can be made with even modest testing with typical users.He gives wonderful examples of computers' being less useful than they could be. One of my favorites: After hundreds or thousands of years, humanity learned to replace inefficient-to-read scrolls with easily-turned pages. When computers arrived, we went back to scrolling.His assertion that computers hindered productivity growth is bound to irritate people and garner some negative reviews. However, this book is a very constructive one--he states and bolsters this surprising assertion and then tells us what we can do to improve the situation. Having worked in technical support for years, a branch of the booming high-tech economy which owes its existence to the difficulty of using computers, I find it amusing that anyone would dispute the thesis that computers could be made much easier to use. I highly recommend this book.
- Amazon Customer Review
• A Book To Give Away
13 August, 2003
I read this book for the first time 5 years ago. I worked at a telecom company and everything he wrote on the paradox of IT investments not returning any money is 100 % true. So I bought 20 copies of the book and gave them to upper management. Needless to say it didn't really help.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Still True Today
02 April, 2001
Despite the claims of other reviewers, the evidence that the situation described in Landauer's book has improved since the surge in the internet and its sub-technologies (e.g., the Web) is absent. I'd refer the interested reader to a recent article in the New Yorker entitled "The Productivity Mirage" (J. Cassidy) to see some interesting numbers that bear on this question.It's not that IT investment doesn't result in productivity gains for some individuals, but that there's little evidence that it does much for most organizations as a whole. This is a point critics often miss, because most critics are computer-savvy and subjectively feel like they're more productive as a result of their computer use. Most of the problems outlined by Landauer still plague current information systems. This book is a must-read for anyone serious about user interface or IT productivity.
- Amazon Customer Review
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