A number of the profiles provide lessons in computer history face design, participatory design, ethnographic studies into the situated use of information systems, typographic design, design in addition to their utility as case studies supporting the discussion of central themes in software design. One profile focuses education, and Social Informatics. Even though the meeting that led to the publication of this collection was held in 1992, the on the influential Alto and Star projects conducted at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center during the late 1970s bibliography is up-to-date, including references to many works published as recently as 1995. This bibliography is provided in and early 1980s. Alto and Star were not successful products in the marketplace, but served as a training ground and object addition to the brief list of suggested readings that accompanies each of the book's chapters and profiles. Separate name and lesson for designers who went on to develop successful products like the Macintosh. Another profile examines the development subject indexes are provided at the back of the book. The subject index is not as well constructed as it might be, which is the of the present day spreadsheet program, which grew from the introduction of the first ''killer app'' for business users of the most obvious flaw in an otherwise well-designed volume.
This collection provides an introduction to software design personal computer, VisiCalc.
The lessons presented in the book are illuminating and some-as a topic of interest separate from software engineering as it is taught by most schools and practiced in most organizations. times inspiring. But the book does not come to grips with one apparent disjuncture: How can the rich information gleaned It presents a high-level, general introduction to a number of important themes in software design and encourages in-depth from the application of user-centered methods, like ethnography or content analysis, be translated into specifications for working exploration into each topic by pointing the reader to a set of seminal works dealing with each theme. It is easy to recommend systems? There seems to be a lack of attention paid to the linkage between the products of ''software designers'' and the this collection because of its careful positioning as an introductory volume, its functional, clear design, and its carefully con-needs of ''software engineers'' throughout the research literature. Is this a hindrance to the widespread adoption of human-structed links to the work that informs the burgeoning discipline of software design. centered approaches to information systems development? Peter Denning and Pamela Dargan's ''Action Centered Design,'' an investigation of how designers created systems that users found well-suited to their needs, hints that this translation may not be Robert J. Sandusky important after all because the application of standard software Graduate School of Library and Information Science engineering methods may itself not be a critical determinant of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign system success. ''All the designers [of successful systems] said