Engineering Psychology and Human Performance

As a budding Usability Engineer I have to say that early in my career I had heard about Wickens as he a prof of Human Factors Engineering around the Chicago area (if I am not mistaken about the area). I bought the book when I could find it on sale once, and it's been a prized possession ever since. Of all my books, only one person I've ever allowed to borrow this one. This book is very dense, everything that the writer puts forth is not only fully explained in detail, but is also backed-up solidly with cited evidence. It's a great book and I honestly would reccommend anyone into Usability or Human Factors get this book and you'll find too it's in your library and highly used. Personally mine has different colored flags everywhere for different points and things to notice. I must say though, that this is not a fast read (due to the information), and it's not necessarily a 'fun' read - but for solid information, I dont see how this book can be beat. -Dustin

Wickens & Hollands cover human factors (which they call engineering psychology in their title) thoroughly in this volume. If you found Donald Norman's "The Psychology of Everyday Things," useful, but want something more in-depth, you may find this academic textbook useful. It covers a great deal of research on several topics critical to software user interface design, such as, attention & perception, spatial displays, memory & training, and decision-making.

Good academic book on study of human psychology and performance in relation to Safety.

Wickens' book, though slightly dated, provides an integrative review of applied psychological research that remains without peer. It offers students of engineering and design a solid theoretic pillar for the relevant psychological issues. Paired with an applications-oriented text of similar quality, one has much of the material needed for a graduate-level introduction to human factors engineering.