Finding common ground among HCI reference disciplines

Five panelists provide an interesting set of contrasting points of view of the HCI field from four distinct disciplines: Business, Computer Science, Information Science, and Psychology. Panelists are asked to respond to six questions in their presentations that address what their particular field offers that is unique, what seems to be quite similar, the effects of the overlaps, and advice for the future. Many of the panelists represent multiple fields, providing a unique opportunity to address the issues of overlap.

Since invention of the first barn-sized computing giant (one hesitates in calling them computers) until this very day, humans have had to engage in some sort of interaction with them, one way or another. However, shapes and means to this interaction have changed dramatically overtime and keeps changing by month. This relationship has faced many twists and turns in its path, yet always seems to be observed, analyzed and addressed by scientists from different disciplines. During the past decades, many hardworking visionary people have contributed to the formation of the field we know as human-computer Interaction. Thanks to their hard work and continuous research, HCI has always moved hand in hand, if not ahead, with technology and humanity passing through major (and sometimes minor) shifts and leaps. These tectonic changes in visions and understandings can be considered as waves. In this essay I try to outline these waves through the history of human and computer relations and make some semi-wild anticipations of what is to come next.

When looking out across the intellectual landscape of HCI, how do we make sense of it? More impor- tantly, how do we evaluate what constitutes legitimate investigation? As an interdisciplinary field, HCI faces challenges in incorporating sometimes conflicting intellectual approaches. While new approaches enrich our view of interaction, they can also lead to conflicting notions of methodology and validity, whose resolution remains murky without explicit discussion of their underlying epistemological commit- ments. Informal histories of HCI commonly identify two major intellectual waves that have formed the field: the first orienting from engineering and human factors with its focus on optimizing man-machine fit, and the second stemming from cognitive science, with an increased emphasis on theory and on what is happening not only in the computer but, simultaneously, in the human mind. HCI also draws on a wide variety of apparently disparate approaches, such as participatory design, si...

Computer applications have been developed for virtually all sectors, ranging from medicine, banking to education. The most important factor for the proper use of a computer program is the interface; however in recent times, some computer programs have become highly intricate and uneasy to manipulate. Efforts by programmers to make productive and interactive systems have been successful yet there is the tendency to introduce complexity and sophistication in the interface designs. This paper attempts to review issues surrounding Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and its relationship to Information Systems. We identify some causes of complexity in user interface design and provide solution paradigms to mitigate these complexities.

Proceedings of the Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2002

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is an interdisciplinary field that has attracted researchers, educators, and practitioners from many different disciplines. HCI has gained even more attention during recent years in which technology has developed at a fast pace. To better utilize this advanced technology, we need to better understand users, their tasks within different contexts, and the interplay among users, tasks, IT, and contexts/environments. Despite broad interest in HCI from a variety of disciplines, we believe that there are ...

This special interest group probes potential problems between HCI researchers and the practitioners who are consumers of research, to explore the extent of the problems and propose possible solutions. It will start with the results of the CHI 2010 workshop on the same topic, articulating factors that may render some of the research literature inaccessible or irrelevant to practitioners. When should HCI researchers be concerned about the relevance of their work to practitioners? How should practitioners communicate their needs for research? Participants will discuss these topics and others that both groups can use to help bridge the gap between research and practice in HCI.

African Journal of Information and Communication …, 2006

Abstract— One of the major challenges in the emerging interdisciplinary field of human-computer interaction (HCI) is the specification of a research line that can enable the development of validated design knowledge with a predictive power for the design of interactive systems. Based on ...

Proceedings of the 4th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction changing roles - NordiCHI '06, 2006

The focus of the research in human-computer interaction (HCI) continues to expand. One example of this is the growing interest in national and ethnic culture as a research topic. In this review, we examine the emerging field of cultural HCI by systematically analysing culture-related literature from five major HCI forums and past sixteen years. We focus on research methodology, technologies and cultures covered, theoretical underpinnings and referencing practices. We also discuss problems found on the basis of the review and provide perspectives on the future research into cultural issues.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1993

This paper presents the results of empirical study of mental representations of the field of HCI, obtained by statistical analysis. Eight HCI experts participating in the study were asked to classify the papers presented at the EWHCr92 Conference. The results show satisfactory agreement between the experts' classifications, as well as high interpretability of the group data. Some conclusions about the implicit "cognitive map" of the HCI field are discussed in the paper.

defined Artificial Intelligence (AI) as both "the science and engineering of intelligent machines, especially computer programs" and the "computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world." Today, AI is increasingly deployed across many domains of direct societal relevance, such as transportation, retail, criminal justice, finance, and health. But these very domains that AI is aiming to revolutionize may also be where human implications are the most momentous. The potential negative effects of AI on society, whether amplifying human biases or the perils of automation, cannot be ignored, and as a result, such topics are increasingly discussed in scholarly and popular press contexts. As the New York Times notes: "… if we want [AI] to play a positive role in tomorrow's world, it must be guided by human concerns" (Li, 2018). The relationship between technology and humans is the direct focus of human-computer interaction (HCI) research. However, conversations about the relationship between HCI and AI are not new. For the past 20 years, the HCI community has proposed principles, guidelines, and strategies for designing and interacting with user interfaces that employ or are powered by AI in a general sense (Norman, 1994; Ho¨o¨k, 2000). For example, an early discussion by Shneiderman and Maes (1997) challenged whether AI should be a primary metaphor in the human interface to computers: Should interactions between a human and a computer mimic human-human interaction? Or are there practical or even philosophical objections to assigning human attributes and abilities to computers? Putting aside these fundamental questions about what human-AI interactions might look like, Norman (2014) and Ho¨O¨(2000) adopt a more practical approach to designing AI systems. They recommend building in safeguards like verification steps or regulating users' agency so as to prevent unwanted behaviors or undesirable consequences arising from these systems. More broadly, other HCI researchers have contrasted the differences in approaches and philosophies adopted by HCI and AI researchers, particularly around how we understand people and create technologies for their benefit (Winograd, 2006). Grudin (2009) also described alternating cycles in which one approach flourished, while the other suffered a "winter," characterized by a period of reduced funding, accompanied by low academic and popular interest. Building upon Grudin, Winograd (2006) contrasted the strengths and limitations of each, as well as the relevance of rationalistic versus design approaches offered by AI and HCI, respectively, when applied to "messy" human problems. Winograd's overall conclusion was rather surprising: he conjectured that the two fields are not so distinct. He concluded that their philosophies are both rooted in common attempts to push the computer metaphor onto all of reality, as evidenced in most twentieth-century science and technology research. Formative and notable work by Horvitz (1999) also attempted to reconcile many of the seeming differences between HCI and AI by highlighting key challenges and opportunities for building "mixed-initiative user interfaces." These are interfaces that enable users and AI to collaborate efficiently. Horvitz states principles for balancing autonomous CONTACT David A.