The book "Designing with the mind in mind" by Jeff Johnson provides excellent background reading for many of the issues discussed in this chapter.
The cs4fn website has a lot of articles and activities on Human Computer Interaction, such as problems around reporting interface problems, cultural issues in interface design, and The importance of Sushi.
A classic book relating to usability is "The psychology of everyday things" (later re-titled "The design of everyday things") by Don Norman. It's about everyday objects like doors and phones, and it was written a while ago, but it contains lots of thought provoking and often humorous examples.
The ten usability heuristics on Nielsen's website, and a collection of articles about usability heuristics
There is a CS Unplugged activity on HCI which includes background information
Here is a series of humorous videos that highlight how some missteps in the online shopping experience would look if they actually played out in real life: