In 1982, I published my first book through Prentice-Hall on computer usability, Human Performance Engineering: A Guide for System Designers. At that time, there were no other books that directly addressed the steps necessary to optimize computer system usability. In fact, Bell Laboratories (AT&T’s Bell Labs), where I was working at the time, sponsored the research and development of the book. It took me one year to write the book, and another year to defend it (and re-write different sections) as it was reviewed by over 100 research psychologists, computer programmers (UNIX, C and C++) and usability experts within Bell Laboratories.
The second edition of Human Performance Engineering was published in 1989, and the third and final edition in 1996. The book was used at major universities throughout the world for well over 20 years, and still sells a few copies on Amazon even now — over 30 years later.