The printed word will be around forever, or at the very least, it will prevail in my lifetime. I remember when Bill Gates was on a mission to make this a paperless planet, and I thought then what I think now; “good luck buddy.” Books are still very much in popular demand. From the “For Dummies” series to Harry Potter, nothing in the electronic, digital, vacuum-formed realm seems to come close to the appeal and durability of books. It’s as if the computer has become a slave to books. Think about it; we have books that tell you how to do so many things with this digital box. From all user-related tasks, to how print more books with your computer, we depend and rely on books, books, and more books. Books never crash, never need batteries, don’t need to “boot up,” will rarely if ever need an “upgrade,” and are still much less expensive and more portable than even the thinnest computer. We have books to teach us how to practice usability with our computers, and they need to be usable as well. I admire how so many developers are making changes and nuances to online help and so many other facets of the digital world, while many of these elements (but probably not enough) offer a printed output for us to utilize. It seems to be what us intelligent monkeys desire more, so we need to keep our standards in check when we write. Over the past year, I have bought many books. Some have been such a disappointment, that I’m tempted to burn them. Others however, have been so well written that I could throw them on the floor, trip over them and still learn something new. We need to keep writing for books and be mindful of the way books are used. If we write solely for electric display, and are mindful only of that realm, we may lose some of the usability aspects of the written word and end up wondering why our paper output doesn’t serve us as expected.