Human-Tech

This book coins the term “human-tech” to describe a more encompassing and ambitious approach to the study of Human-Technology Interaction (HTI) than is now evident in any of its participating disciplines, such as human factors, human-computer interaction, cognitive science and engineering, industrial design, informatics or applied psychology. Observing that the way forward is “not by widgets alone”, this book's human-tech approach addresses every level—physical, psychological, team, organizational, and political—at which technology impacts quality of life, identifies a human or societal need,...

This book coins the term “human-tech” to describe a more encompassing and ambitious approach to the study of Human-Technology Interaction (HTI) than is now evident in any of its participating disciplines, such as human factors, human-computer interaction, cognitive science and engineering, industrial design, informatics or applied psychology. Observing that the way forward is “not by widgets alone”, this book's human-tech approach addresses every level—physical, psychological, team, organizational, and political—at which technology impacts quality of life, identifies a human or societal need, and then tailors technology to what we know about human nature at that level. This collection of chapters and commentaries forms a set of recommendations for how HTI research ought to broaden both its perspective and its practical, even ethical, aspirations to meet the increasingly complicated challenges of designing technology to support human work, to improve quality of life, and to design the way will live with technology.