Ben Shneiderman

Ben Shneiderman (born August 21, 1947) is an American

Ben Shneiderman
computer scientist, a Distinguished University Professor in the
University of Maryland Department of Computer Science, which
is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer,
Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland,
College Park, and the founding director (1983-2000) of the
University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab. He
conducted fundamental research in the field of human–computer
interaction, developing new ideas, methods, and tools such as the
direct manipulation interface, and his eight rules of design.[1]

Early life and education

Born in New York, Shneiderman, attended the Bronx High School Shneiderman at UNC Charlotte,
of Science, and received a BS in Mathematics and Physics from April 1, 2011
the City College of New York in 1968. He then went on to study Born August 21, 1947
at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he New York City, New
received an MS in Computer Science in 1972 and graduated with York
a PhD in 1973.
Nationality American
Alma mater City College of New
Career York (B.S.,
Mathematics and
Shneiderman started his academic career at the State University of
New York at Farmingdale in 1968 as instructor at the Department Physics, 1968)
of Data Processing. In the last year before his graduation he was Stony Brook
an instructor at the Department of Computer Science of Stony University (M.S.,
Brook University (then called State University of New York at Computer Science,
Stony Brook). In 1973 he was appointed assistant professor at the 1972; Ph.D., 1973)
Indiana University, Department of Computer Science. In 1976 he
Known for Nassi–Shneiderman
moved to the University of Maryland. He started out as assistant
diagram, treemap,
professor in its Department of Information Systems Management,
and became associate professor in 1979. In 1983 he moved to its Information
Department of Computer Science as associate professor, and was Visualization,
promoted to full professor in 1989. In 1983 he was the Founding HyperLink,
Director of its Human-Computer Interaction Lab, which he Touchscreen, Direct
directed until 2000.[2] manipulation
interface
In 2002 his book Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New
Awards Member National
Computing Technologies was Winner of an IEEE-USA Award for
Distinguished Contributions Furthering Public Understanding of Academy of
the Profession. His 2016 book, The New ABCs of Research: Engineering, ACM
Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations, encourages applied and Fellow, AAAS Fellow,
IEEE Fellow, IEEE
Visualization Career
basic research to be combined. In 2019, he published Encounters Award, SIGCHI
with HCI Pioneers: A Personal History and Photo Journal, and LifeTime
Human-Centered AI in 2022.[3] Achievement, Miles
Conrad Award,
Awards and honors National Academy of
Inventors Fellow
Shneiderman was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Scientific career
Computing Machinery in 1997, a Fellow of the American
Fields Computer science,
Association for the Advancement of Science in 2001, a Member of
the National Academy of Engineering in 2010, an IEEE Fellow in human–computer
interaction,
2012,[4] and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in
2015.[5] He is an ACM CHI Academy Member and received their information
Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.[6] He received the IEEE visualization social
Visualization Career Award in 2012 and was inducted into the media
IEEE VIS Academy in 2019. In 2021 he received the InfoVis Institutions University of
Conference Test of Time Award[7] with co-authors Ben Bederson Maryland, College
and Martin M. Wattenberg. Park

He received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Guelph Doctoral Jack Heller
(Canada) in 1995, the University of Castile-La Mancha (Spain) in advisor
2010,[8] Stony Brook University in 2015,[9] the University of Doctoral Andrew Sears
Melbourne in 2017, Swansea University (in Wales, UK) in 2018, students
and the University of Pretoria (in South Africa) in 2018.

Personal life
Shneiderman resides in Bethesda, Maryland. He is the nephew of photographer David Seymour.[10]

Work

Nassi–Shneiderman diagram

In the 1973 article "Flowchart techniques for structured

programming" presented at a 1973 SIGPLAN meeting
Isaac Nassi and Shneiderman argued:

With the advent of structured programming

and GOTO-less programming a method is
needed to model computation in simply
ordered structures, each representing a
complete thought possibly defined in terms of Example of a Nassi–Shneiderman diagram
other thoughts as yet undefined. A model is
needed which prevents unrestricted transfers
of control and has a control structure closer to
languages amenable to structured
programming. We present an attempt at such
a model.[11]
The new model technique for structured programming they presented has become known as the Nassi–
Shneiderman diagram; a graphical representation of the design of structured software.[12]

Flowchart research

In the 1970s Shneiderman continued to study programmers, and the use of flow charts. In the 1977 article
"Experimental investigations of the utility of detailed flowcharts in programming" Shneiderman et al.
summarized the origin and status quo of flowcharts in computer programming:

Flowcharts have been a part of computer programming since the introduction of computers in
the 1940s. In 1947 Goldstein and von Neumann [7] presented a system of describing
processes using operation, assertion, and alternative boxes. They felt that "coding begins with
the drawing of flow diagram." Prior to coding, the algorithm had been identified and
understood. The flowchart represented a high level definition of the solution to be
implemented on a machine. Although they were working only with numerical algorithms, they
proposed a programming methodology which has since become standard practice in the
computer programming field. [13]

Furthermore, Shneiderman had conducted experiments which suggested that flowcharts were not helpful
for writing, understanding, or modifying computer programs. At the end of their 1977 paper, Shneiderman
et al. concluded:

Although our original intention was to ascertain under which conditions detailed flowcharts
were most helpful, our repeated negative results have led us to a more skeptical opinion of the
utility of detailed flowcharts under modern programming conditions. We repeatedly selected
problems and tried to create test conditions which would favor the flowchart groups, but found
no statistically significant differences between the flowchart and non-flowchart groups. In
some cases the mean scores for the non-flowchart groups even surpassed the means for the
flowchart groups. We conjecture that detailed flowcharts are merely a redundant presentation
of the information contained in the programming language statements. The flowcharts may
even be at a disadvantage because they are not as complete (omitting declarations, statement
labels, and input/output formats) and require many more pages than do the concise
programming language statements.[14]

Designing the User Interface

In 1986, he published the first edition (now on its sixth edition) of his book "Designing the User Interface:
Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction." Included in this book is his most popular list of
"Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design," which read:

1. Strive for consistency. Consistent sequences of actions should be required in

similar situations ...
2. Enable frequent users to use shortcuts. As the frequency of use increases, so do
the user's desires to reduce the number of interactions ...
3. Offer informative feedback. For every operator action, there should be some
system feedback ...
 4. Design dialog to yield closure. Sequences of actions should be organized into
groups with a beginning, middle, and end ...
5. Offer simple error handling. As much as possible, design the system so the user
cannot make a serious error ...
6. Permit easy reversal of actions. This feature relieves anxiety, since the user
knows that errors can be undone ...
7. Support internal locus of control. Experienced operators strongly desire the
sense that they are in charge of the system and that the system responds to their
actions. Design the system to make users the initiators of actions rather than the
responders.
8. Reduce short-term memory load. The limitation of human information processing
in short-term memory requires that displays be kept simple, multiple page
displays be consolidated, window-motion frequency be reduced, and sufficient
training time be allotted for codes, mnemonics, and sequences of actions.[15]

These guidelines are frequently taught in courses on Human-Computer Interaction.

The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and Reflections, 2003

In 2003, Ben Bederson and Shneiderman coauthored the book "The Craft of Information Visualization:
Readings and Reflections". Included in Chapter 8: Theories for Understanding Information Visualization in
this book are five goals of theories for HCI practitioners and researchers, which read:

The typical goals of theories are to enable practitioners and researchers to:

1. Describe objects and actions in a consistent and clear manner to enable

cooperation
2. Explain processes to support education and training
3. Predict performance in normal and novel situations so as to increase the
chances of success
4. Prescribe guidelines, recommend best practices, and caution about dangers
5. Generate novel ideas to improve research and practice.[16]

These goals are frequently taught in courses on Human-Computer Interaction and cited in works by authors
such as Yvonne Rogers, Victor Kaptelinin, and Bonnie Nardi.

Direct manipulation interface

Shneiderman's cognitive analysis of user needs led to principles of direct manipulation interface design in
1982: (1) continuous representation of the objects and actions, (2) rapid, incremental, and reversible actions,
and (3) physical actions and gestures to replace typed commands, which enabled designers to craft more
effective graphical user interfaces. He applied those principles to design innovative user interfaces such as
the highlighted selectable phrases in text, that were used in the commercially successful Hyperties.[17]
Hyperties was used to author the world's first electronic scientific journal issue, which was the July 1988
issue of the Communications of the ACM[18] with seven papers from the 1987 Hypertext conference. It
was made available as a floppy disk accompanying the printed journal. Tim Berners-Lee cited this disk as
the source for his "hot spots" in his Spring 1989 manifesto[19] for the World Wide Web. Hyperties was also
used to create the world's first commercial electronic book, Hypertext Hands-On! in 1988.
Direct manipulation concepts led to touchscreen interfaces for home controls, finger-painting, and the now
ubiquitous small touchscreen keyboards. The development of the "Lift-off strategy"[20] by University of
Maryland Human–Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) researchers enabled users to touch the screen, getting
feedback as to what will be selected, adjust their finger position, and complete the selection by lifting the
finger off the screen.

The HCIL team applied direct manipulation principles for touchscreen home automation systems, finger-
painting programs,[21] and the double-box range sliders[22] that gained prominence by their inclusion in
Spotfire. The visual presentation inherent in direct manipulation emphasized the opportunity for information
visualization.

In 1997, Pattie Maes and Shneiderman had a public debate on Direct Manipulation vs. Interface Agents at
CHI'97[23] and IUI 1997 (with the IUI Proceedings showing two separate papers[24][25] but no remaining
internet trace of the panel.) Those events helped define the two current dominant themes in human-
computer interaction:[26] direct human control of computer operations via visual user interfaces vs
delegation of control to interface agents that know the users desires and act on their behalf, thereby
requiring less human attention. Their debate continues to be highly cited (with 479 citations in January
2022 for the original CHI debate[27]), especially in user interface design communities where return debates
took place at the ACM CHI 2017[28] and ACM CHI 2021[29] conferences.

Information visualization

His major work in recent years has been on information visualization, originating the treemap concept for
hierarchical data.[30] Treemaps are implemented in most information visualization tools including Spotfire,
Tableau Software, QlikView, SAS, JMP, and Microsoft Excel. Treemaps are included in hard drive
exploration tools, stock market data analysis, census systems, election data, gene expression, and data
journalism. The artistic side of treemaps are on view in the Treemap Art Project.

He also developed dynamic queries sliders with multiple coordinated displays that are a key component of
Spotfire, which was acquired by TIBCO in 2007. His work continued on visual analysis tools for time
series data, TimeSearcher, high dimensional data, Hierarchical Clustering Explorer, and social network
data, SocialAction.[31] Shneiderman contributed to the widely used social network analysis and
visualization tool NodeXL.

Current work deals with visualization of temporal event sequences, such as found in Electronic Health
Records, in systems such as LifeLines2[32] and EventFlow.[33] These tools visualize the categorical data
that make up a single patient history and they present an aggregated view that enables analysts to find
patterns in large patient history databases.

Taxonomy of interactive dynamics for visual analysis, 2012

In 2012, Jeffrey Heer and Shneiderman coauthored the article "Interactive Dynamics for Visual Analysis"
in Association for Computing Machinery Queue vol. 10, no. 2. Included in this article is a taxonomy of
interactive dynamics to assist researchers, designers, analysts, educators, and students in evaluating and
creating visual analysis tools. The taxonomy consists of 12 task types grouped into three high-level
categories, as shown below.
 Data & View Specification Visualize data by choosing visual encodings.

Filter out data to focus on relevant items.

Sort items to expose patterns.
Derive values or models from source data.

View Manipulation Select items to highlight, filter, or manipulate them.

Navigate to examine high-level patterns and low-level detail.

Coordinate views for linked, multi-dimensional exploration.
Organize multiple windows and workspaces.

Process & Provenance Record analysis histories for revisitation, review, and sharing.

Annotate patterns to document findings.

Share views and annotations to enable collaboration.
Guide users through analysis tasks or stories.

[34]

Universal usability

He also defined the research area of universal usability to encourage greater attention to diverse users,
languages, cultures, screen sizes, network speeds, and technology platforms.

Human-Centered AI

The current topic of Shneiderman's Scholarship is Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence[3][35]

Shneiderman proposes an alternative vision of AI which focuses on the need for reliable, safe and
trustworthy systems that enable people to benefit from the power of AI while remaining in control.
Shneiderman emphasizes the need for technologies that "augment, amplify, empower, and enhance humans
rather than replace them".[36]

Publications
List of articles:[37][38]

Shneiderman, Ben, Human-Centered AI, Oxford University Press, 2022[39]

Shneiderman, Ben. The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations;
Oxford University Press, 2016.[40]
Ben Shneiderman (1978). Databases: Improving Usability and Responsiveness. Academic
Press. ISBN 0-12-642150-1.
Shneiderman, Ben. Software Psychology: Human Factors in Computer and Information
Systems; Little, Brown and Co, 1980.
Shneiderman, Ben. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human–Computer
Interaction, 1st edition. Addison-Wesley, 1986; 2nd ed. 1992; 3rd ed. 1998; 4th ed. 2005; 5th
ed. 2010 (http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/academic/product/0,3110,0321537351,
 00.html); 6th ed., 2016 (https://www.pearsonhighered.com/program/Shneiderman-Designing
-the-User-Interface-Strategies-for-Effective-Human-Computer-Interaction-6th-Edition/PGM32
7860.html).
Card, Stuart K., Jock D. Mackinlay, and Ben Shneiderman, eds. Readings in Information
Visualization: Using Vision to Think. Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.
Shneiderman, Ben. Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing
Technologies (http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/leonardos-laptop); MIT Press, 2002.
Hansen, Derek, Ben Shneiderman, and Marc A. Smith. Analyzing social media networks
with NodeXL: Insights from a connected world. Morgan Kaufmann, 2010.
Johnson, Brian, and Ben Shneiderman. "Tree-maps: A space-filling approach to the
visualization of hierarchical information structures (http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/37
0/2/CS-TR-2657.pdf)." Visualization, 1991. Visualization'91, Proceedings., IEEE
Conference on. IEEE, 1991.
Shneiderman, Ben. "Tree visualization with tree-maps: 2-d space-filling approach (http://dru
m.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/367/2/CS-TR-2645.pdf)." ACM Transactions on Graphics 11.1
(1992): 92–99.
Ahlberg, Christopher, and Ben Shneiderman. "Visual information seeking: tight coupling of
dynamic query filters with starfield displays (http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/5410/1/T
R_93-71.pdf)." Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing
systems. ACM, 1994.
Shneiderman, Ben. "The eyes have it: A task by data type taxonomy for information
visualizations (http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/5784/1/TR_96-66.pdf)." Visual
Languages, 1996. Proceedings., IEEE Symposium on. IEEE, 1996.
Bederson, B., Shneiderman, B. 2003. The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and
Reflections. Morgan Kaufmann.
Heer, J., Shneiderman, B. 2012. Interactive Dynamics for Visual Analysis. ACM Queue,
10(2), Issue 2.
Shneiderman, B. (2020). Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence: Reliable, Safe &
Trustworthy. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 1–10.

References
1. "Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" (http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/golde
nrules.html). Retrieved December 4, 2015.
2. CURRICULUM VITAE (June 20, 2014) (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/members/bshneiderma
n/full-resume.pdf) at cs.umd.edu. Accessed 14-04-2015.
3. Shneiderman, Ben (2022). Human-Centered AI (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/hu
man-centered-ai-9780192845290?). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-284529-0.
4. 2012 Newly Elevated Fellows (http://www.ieee.org/documents/fellows_class_2012.pdf)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20120215201114/http://www.ieee.org/documents/fello
ws_class_2012.pdf) February 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine IEEE, accessed 2011-12-
10.
5. "Colwell Named a Fellow in the National Academy of Inventors | UMIACS" (http://www.umia
cs.umd.edu/about-us/news/colwell-named-fellow-national-academy-inventors).
6. "2001 SIGCHI Awards (Incomplete) —" (https://web.archive.org/web/20150907183121/http://
www.sigchi.org/about/awards/awards-2001.html/#ben-shneiderman-1). Archived from the
original (http://www.sigchi.org/about/awards/awards-2001.html#ben-shneiderman-1) on
September 7, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
7. 2021 InfoVis Conference Test of Time Award (http://ieeevis.org/year/2021/info/awards/test-of
-time-awards)
 8. Doctorado Honoris Causa de Ben Shneiderman (http://161.67.140.29/cms/index.php?option
=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=18) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/201109
02005852/http://161.67.140.29/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Ite
mid=18) September 2, 2011, at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
9. "Newsday | Long Island's & NYC's News Source | Newsday" (http://www.newsday.com/long
-island/suffolk/billy-joel-charles-wang-ben-shneiderman-to-get-honorary-degrees-from-stony
-brook-university-1.10304902).
10. Library (of Congress) to Commemorate Work of Photographer David Seymour, OCTOBER
31, 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2022 (https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-14-194/photographer-da
vid-seymour/2014-10-31/)
11. Nassi, Isaac, and Ben Shneiderman. "Flowchart techniques for structured
programming.|ACM SIGPLAN Notices 8.8 (1973): 12-26.
12. Ben Shneiderman. "A short history of structured flowcharts (Nassi–Shneiderman diagram) (h
ttp://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/members/bshneiderman/nsd/)," at www.cs.umd.edu. May 27,
2003.
13. B. Shneiderman, R. Mayer, D. McKay, and P. Heller. "Experimental investigations of the
utility of detailed flowcharts in programming (http://cgis.cs.umd.edu/~ben/papers/Shneiderm
an1977Experimental.pdf)," Communications of the ACM, Vol. 20, Iss. 6, June 1977.
14. Shneiderman et al. (1977, p. 380)
15. Shneiderman (1998, p. 75); as cited in: "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" (http://www.
cs.umd.edu/~ben/goldenrules.html). at www.cs.umd.edu. Accessed 15.04.2015.
16. Bederson, B., Shneiderman, B. 2003. The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and
Reflections. Morgan Kaufmann, p.349-351.
17. "Hypertext Research: The Development of HyperTIES" (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/hypertie
s/).
18. "July 1988 Table of Contents | Communications of the ACM" (https://cacm.acm.org/magazine
s/1988/7).
19. "The original proposal of the WWW, HTMLized" (http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.ht
ml).
20. Potter, R.; Weldon, L.; Shneiderman, B. "Improving the accuracy of touch screens: an
experimental evaluation of three strategies" (https://web.archive.org/web/20151208121730/h
ttp://www.cs.umd.edu/localphp/hcil/tech-reports-search.php?number=88-04). Proceedings of
the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI '88 (Abstract). Washington,
DC. pp. 27–32. doi:10.1145/57167.57171 (https://doi.org/10.1145%2F57167.57171).
Archived from the original (http://www.cs.umd.edu/localphp/hcil/tech-reports-search.php?nu
mber=88-04) on December 8, 2015.
21. "PlayPen II (Now known as PenPlay II): A novel fingerpainting program (1991)" (https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=5cSemy8Ytsw). YouTube.
22. "Dynamic queries, starfield displays, and the path to Spotfire" (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/sp
otfire/).
23. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1120212.1120281 CHI 1997 Panel
24. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/238218.238281 Shneiderman's IUI'97 paper
25. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/238218.238283 Maes's IUI'97 paper
26. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/267505.267514 Direct Manipulation vs. Interface Agents
(1997 paper in Interactions)
27. Google Scholar list of citations of the Maes-Shneiderman CHI Panel debate (https://scholar.
google.com/scholar?cites=11545263262375356003&)
28. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3027063.3051137 CHI 2017 Panel
29. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3411763.3450394 CHI 2021 Panel
30. history page (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap-history)
31. "SocialAction" (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/socialaction/). University of Maryland. December
30, 2007. Retrieved December 30, 2007.
32. "Lifelines2" (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/lifelines2). umd.edu. Retrieved September 23, 2011.
33. "EventFlow" (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/eventflow). umd.edu. Retrieved March 11, 2015.
34. Heer, J., Shneiderman, B. 2012. Interactive Dynamics for Visual Analysis. ACM Queue,
10(2), Issue 2, 1-22.
35. Shneiderman, Ben (2020). "Human-centered artificial intelligence: Reliable, safe &
trustworthy". International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction. 36 (6): 495–504.
arXiv:2002.04087 (https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.04087). doi:10.1080/10447318.2020.1741118
(https://doi.org/10.1080%2F10447318.2020.1741118). S2CID 211259461 (https://api.seman
ticscholar.org/CorpusID:211259461).
36. Shneiderman, Ben (2020). "Human-Centered Artificial IntelligenceI" (https://hcil.umd.edu/hu
man-centered-ai/). Human-Computer Interaction Lab. University of Maryland. Retrieved
January 12, 2022.
37. Ben Shneiderman (https://dblp.org/pid/s/BShneiderman) at DBLP Bibliography Server
38. Ben Shneiderman (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=h4i4fh8AAAAJ) publications
indexed by Google Scholar
39. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/human-centered-ai-9780192845290? Human-
Centered AI
40. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-new-abcs-of-research-9780198758839 The
New ABCs of Research

External links
Ben Shneiderman's home page (http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/)
Ben Shneiderman papers at the University of Maryland Libraries
Ben Shneiderman's channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/BenShneiderman) on YouTube
Treemap Art Project (http://treemapart.wordpress.com)
Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 7 August 2009 (video) (https://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/11
30395)

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