information technology . The boo k does a good job of presentin g many of the issues facing the I T professional today . Handbook of Human-Computer Interactio n Martin Helander (Ed .) , North-Holland, Amsterdam 1988 . xxxiii+1167 pages, $258 .00 . Reviewed by : Jakob Nielsen ; Technical University of Denmark ; Department of Computer Science ; DK-2800 Lyngby ; Copenhagen , Denmark ; datJN a NEUVM1 .bitnet . My conclusion : If money grew on trees you should rush to th e nearest bookstore to buy thi s book, after stopping to pick a good handful of the green stuff . Unfortunately, money does not grow on trees where I come from , so unless you are in mor e fortunate circumstances you wil l probably have to settle for lookin g at the handbook in some library . I do recommend the purchase o f the handbook by libraries tha t cater to larger communities o f usability professionals . The editor has succeeded i n getting a very good set of authors , including Phil Barnard, Jac k Carroll, Bill Curtis, John Gould , Tom Landauer, Tom Malone , Jens Rasmussen, Sid Smith, Joh n Whiteside, Pat Wright, and man y other famous people . Certainly the choice of topics fo r the chapters is not exactly the same as I would have made . There are a few chapters abou t slightly obscure topics such a s "robot programming " an d "human-computer interaction i n facilities layout, " while some mor e broadly applicable concepts lik e hypertext are not covered . Actually, I had dinner with Helander recently and was tol d that he had originally planned t o include a chapter on hypertext but had to drop it to get the book out on time . There is also ver y little information about th e effective use of color in interfac e design . The chapter on image quality has a short discussion o f the eye's ability to perceive color , and the chapter on screen design spends a few lines comparin g color with highlighting and spatia l grouping but refers the reader to read more in the chapter on color usage . But there is no suc h chapter in the book ! Despite these and a few other misses, the handbook has th e most complete coverage of th e usability field I have seen yet . There are chapters on basic issue s like mental models, metaphors , GOMS, individual differences and novice-expert differences, an d research methodology in HCI on issues such as menu design , command names, screen design , graphics design, and windo w design ; and on such process issue s as design and evaluation methods , usability engineering, standards and guidelines, prototyping, an d UIMS . The chapters in thes e areas cover most of th e background one would need as a usability professional . Furthermore, the handbook also covers intelligent interfaces an d expert system interfaces, as well as social and organizational issue s in the use of computers . The A I chapters may currently be o f limited interest for practitioners , but the organizational issues ar e widely recognized as important even though most people don' t deal with them . The handbook contains a total o f 52 chapters, and I must admit t o not having read nearly all o f them . Those I have read have mostly been of excellent quality . For example, the chapters by Dennis Egan on individual differences, and by Joh n Whiteside, John Bennett an d Karen Holtzblatt on usability engineering, are very likely to b e the standard references for thes e two topics in the future . Peopl e who only have time to read a single article on usability in thei r life might be recommended to read John Gould's chapter "Ho w to Design Usable Systems " —this single chapter contains enoug h checklists to form the basis for a quantum jump in usability in most development organizations . Finally, some comments on the usability of the handbook as a handbook . The number o f printing errors in the book is a disgrace . (No other word will d o to describe the extent of typos i n this book .) The table of content s is somewhat unwieldy . The inde x (which is especially important in a handbook) is also too poorl y done . For example, there is a reference from the index ter m "thinking aloud " to page 96 3 (where thinking aloud is discusse d in the context of knowledg e elicitation for expert systems) an d a reference from "software comprehension, thinking aloud " to page 108 where the method i s mentioned in passing in a chapte r on how programmers understan d code . The index does not have a reference to the discussion b y John Gould on page 771 o f thinking aloud in the context o f testing and improving use r interfaces . There are a furthe r four references to "think aloud, " all of which are to chapters mentioning some result from a thinking aloud study and not t o discussions of the method itself . Having three different index terms for a single concept withou t cross references significantl y lowers the probability that reader s will find what they are lookin g for . In spite of the various problems with the handbook, m y conclusion is that it contains s o many excellent chapters wit h original material or good surveys and extensive literature reference s that it will often be the first plac e I will turn to to look u p information about topics in th e human-computer interaction field . Speech Recognition by Machin e W .A . Ainsworth, Peter Peregrine s Ltd ., 1988 . Reviewed by : James H Bradford ; Department of Computer Science ; Brock University ; St . Catharines , Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1 . Ainsworth has set himself th e ambitious goal of describing the theory and technology that for m the basis of modern speech recognition . His is a surprisingl y short book (only 206 pages) fo r such a broad topic . Initially, I wa s SIGCHI Bulletin October 1990 8/ Volume 22, Number 2

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