Designing the User Interface or Reconfigurable Computing

Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction

Author: Ben Shneiderman

In 1996, recognizing this book, ACM's Special Interest Group on Documentation (SIGDOC) presented Ben Shneiderman with the Joseph Rigo Award. SIGDOC praised the book as one "that took the jargon and mystery out of the field of human-computer interaction" and attributed the book's success to "its readability and emphasis on practice as well as research."

In revising this best-seller, Ben Shneiderman again provides a complete, current, and authoritative introduction to user-interface design. The user interface is the part of every computer system that determines how people control and operate that system. When the interface is well designed, it is comprehensible, predictable, and controllable; users feel competent, satisfied, and responsible for their actions. In this book, the author discusses the principles and practices needed to design such effective interaction.

Based on 20 years experience, Shneiderman offers readers practical techniques and guidelines for interface design. As a scientist, he also takes great care to discuss underlying issues and to support conclusions with empirical results. Interface designers, software engineers, and product managers will all find here an invaluable resource for creating systems that facilitate rapid learning and performance, yield low error rates, and generate high user satisfaction. Coverage includes the human factors of interactive software (with added discussion of diverse user communities), tested methods to develop and assess interfaces, interaction styles (like direct manipulation for graphical user interfaces), and design considerations (effective messages, consistent screen design, appropriate color).

Booknews

In this revised and updated presentation of user interface design for designers, managers, and evaluators of interactive systems, Schneiderman (computer science, U. of Maryland) discusses the underlying issues, principles, and empirical results, and describes practical guidelines and techniques necessary to realize an effective design. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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Reconfigurable Computing: The Theory and Practice of FPGA-Based Computation

Author: Scott Hauck

The main characteristic of Reconfigurable Computing is the presence of hardware that can be reconfigured to implement specific functionality more suitable for specially tailored hardware than on a simple uniprocessor. Reconfigurable computing systems join microprocessors and programmable hardware in order to take advantage of the combined strengths of hardware and software and have been used in applications ranging from embedded systems to high performance computing. Many of the fundamental theories have been identified and used by the Hardware/Software Co-Design research field. Although the same background ideas are shared in both areas, they have different goals and use different approaches.This book is intended as an introduction to the entire range of issues important to reconfigurable computing, using FPGAs as the context, or "computing vehicles" to implement this powerful technology. It will take a reader with a background in the basics of digital design and software programming and provide them with the knowledge needed to be an effective designer or researcher in this rapidly evolving field.

• Treatment of FPGAs as computing vehicles rather than glue-logic or ASIC substitutes
• Views of FPGA programming beyond Verilog/VHDL
• Broad set of case studies demonstrating how to use FPGAs in novel and efficient ways

Table of Contents:

Contents Preface Introduction Part One: Hardware Part I INTRO Chapter 1 - General-Purpose FPGA Architecture
Chapter 2 - Reconfigurable Computing Devices Chapter 3 - Reconfigurable Computing Systems Chapter 4 - Reconfiguration Management Part Two: Software Part II Intro Chapter 5 - Computer Models and System Architectures Andrй DeHon Chapter 6 - Hardware Description Languages (VHDL)
Chapter 7 - Compilation for Reconfigurable Computing Machines
Chapter 8 - Streaming Models
8.1 MATLAB/SIMULINK
8.2 SCORE Chapter 9 SIMD/Vector Chapter 10 - OS/Runtime Systems Chapter 11 - JHDL Chapter 12 -Technology Mapping Chapter 13 - Placement
13.1 General-purpose / FPGA
13.2 Datapath
13.3 Constructive Chapter 14 - Routing Chapter 15 - Retimin Chapter 16 - Bitstream Generation, JBits Chapter 17 - Fast Mapping Part Three: Application Development PART III INTRO Chapter 18 - Evaluating and Optimizing problems for FPGA implementations Chapter 19- Instance-specific design, Constant Propagation & Partial Evaluation
Chapter 20 - Precision Analysis & Floating Point Chapter 21 - Distributed Arithmetic Chapter 22 - CORDIC Chapter 23 - Task allocation: FPGA vs. CPU partitioning Part Four: Case Studies PART IV INTRO Chapter 24 - Image Processing, Variable Precision, Algorithm Alteration: SPIHT Compression Chapter 25 - Run-time reconfiguration: Automatic Target Recognition Chapter 26 - Problem-specific circuitry: SAT Solving
Chapter 27 - Multi-FPGA Systems: Logic Emulation Chapter 28- Floating Point Chapter 29 - FDTD Chapter 30 - Genetic Evolution
Chapter 31 - Packet Filtering (Networking application)
Chapter 32 - Active Pages [Memorycentric] Part Five:Theoretical Underpinnings and Future Directions
PART V INTRO Chapter 33- Theoretical Underpinnings, Metrics and Analysis Chapter 34 - Defect and Fault Tolerance Chapter 35 - Reconfigurable Computing and Nanotechnology