Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies (review)

Leonardo's Laptop talks about some very dear and ubiquitous topics of today. Why have we been tortured with difficult user interfaces in computing for so long? How is that one has to join the cult group of geeks—somewhat similar to the family of magicians who do not let their secrets out into the general public—if one is determined to use computers on deeper levels? Obviously Shneiderman spends a lot of time asking questions. In every chapter he muses about how Leonardo da Vinci would have handled the problems of today. Due to the breadth of activity in which Leonardo indulged, he no doubt would have had some interesting things to say about user interfaces.

The later chapters concentrate on a variety of topics seeking to expand and change the areas and goals of computing. In each of these areas Shneiderman muses on new ways to use and collect data without giving away too much privacy. In the chapter on education he stresses the notion of collaboration. Students are able to use the Internet to collaborate across either short or long distances. In today's complex world it is more and more difficult to accomplish very much by working alone. This topic of collaboration, which reappears in the later sections, seems to be one of the best opportunities given to us by computing technology. In the e-business section we read what most of us already know: how the world of shopping can become more and more personalized through data collection on our habits, but always the dark side of too much information on each of us looms, spoken of in Shneiderman's ever-present "skeptics corner."

As I am a person who has not been a ready participant in online discussions, though occasionally a reader, I am intrigued by Shneiderman's analyses of how computing could vastly improve the experience through filtering and organizing large groups of online chatters.

The most interesting chapter for me, and also the one that fulfils the stated goals of the first chapter, is the penultimate, "Mega-Creativity." Different levels of creativity are defined, concluding that the very top sort of genius cannot be dealt with in this context. However, tools can be built and data organized and made available on the Web in such ways as to promote ordinary humans in their creative pursuits. Although such creative theories are spoken of as Daniel Couger's or George Poyla's, I was disappointed that there was no information given about the Creativity and Cognition Research Studios at the University of Loughborough in the U.K. and now in the Technical University of Sydney. Ernest Edmonds and Linda Candy have been studying the implications and support requirements of computing and the arts through their visiting artist program, integrated with systematic observation of both the artists and technology partners. Their research and analyses of the collected information is certainly an important source for exactly the kind of creative problems Shneiderman writes about. At the end we are once again presented with the opposing ideas of "serving human needs" and becoming human. Computers are tools, not entities, Shneiderman repeats. His book is a plea and also a call to arms for consumers.