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Colleagues,
The CPHC (Committee of Professors and Heads of Computer Science) initiated
a meeting in January 2000 to discuss the research agenda for Computer
Science. HCI was one of the sub areas which I and Gilbert Cockton
volunteered to co-organise. We were restricted to 10 participants so the
panel which took part in the discussion had to be selected in a manner
neither of us would have naturally chosen. Having lived with these
constraints, the HCI panel had a productive meeting and gave a good
presentation of its findings that demonstrated we are one of the stronger
areas of computer science.
We now wish to widen the debate to consult more widely and develop the
initial CPHC research agenda into a document that represents the wishes of
the whole community (academics and industry) and address a wider audience
than CPHC, e.g. research councils, government funding agencies, industrial
research agendas, and other academic disciplines besides Computer Science.
Accordingly this note is an informal call for expression of interest in
attending a workshop to discuss the HCI research agenda. Should there be
sufficient interest, we will arrange the workshop as part of the HCI 2000
(Sunderland) Programme in September.
The HCI research agenda submitted to the CPHC follows.
I would be grateful for:
(a) Any comments you may have on the document. We are not promising any
revision of the document in the near future, but comments will be fed into
the workshop revision process.
(b) An expression of interest in attending a research workshop at HCI 2000.
If there is sufficient interests a call for position papers will be issued
in late March, and some selection process may be necessary for attendance
if we receive a large number of positions papers (i.e. more than 40)
Regards
Alistair Sutcliffe
Professor A.G. Sutcliffe
Centre for HCI Design,
Department of Computation, Phone +44- (0)161-200-3315
UMIST, FAX +44- (0)161-200-3324
P.O. Box 88,
Manchester M60 1QD. Email [log in to unmask]
UK.
http://www.co.umist.ac.uk/hci_design/index.htm
CPHC Research Strategy Contribution
Human Computer Interaction group.
1. Description of the Area
HCI is the discipline of analysing the requirements for use and designing
computer systems which involve people either directly (interactive) or
indirectly (embedded). It involves understanding the role that computer
systems play in work and leisure activities and designing support for those
activities. HCI also embraces the design of software tools to assist the
development of computer systems and hardware interfaces that involve
people. HCI contributes to the science of interaction between people and
computer systems, and to the engineering discipline of constructing
reliable computer systems that fulfil users' needs. HCI is closely related
to software engineering but adds guidelines, methods, models and tools for
user centred design thus ensuring usability and operational effectiveness
of user interfaces. HCI is underpinned by an eclectic synthesis of theory,
methods and knowledge from computer science, psychology, sociology and
other disciplines, which it has synthesised into a design process for
interactive systems. Its longer term contribution will be defining a family
of theories of interaction which explain and predict how the form and
function of software and hardware interfaces should be effectively designed
to achieve people's needs, in a range of contexts from single user
interaction to electronically-mediated communities.
2. Achievements
(i) Built an HCI community of researchers and practitioners.
(ii) HCI has influenced the software development process and product
quality in industry, notably through usability evaluation (quality
assurance), user centred design methods, design principles and guidelines.
ISO standards and de facto look and feel style guidelines are evidence of
HCI's impact.
(iii) HCI is now an established part of the core Computer Science
curriculum and specialist Master courses have been developed.
(iv) Usability is now an acknowledged quality issue and HCI is accepted as
a key component of system dependability in safety critical applications.
(v) HCI has produced an extensive range of usable and commercially
successful artefacts, e.g. Macintosh widgits and user interface toolsets,
Hypertext, spreadsheets, etc.
3. Challenges
(i) To develop theories of interaction that underpin the design process in
HCI. Theoretical influences from psychology, sociology and computer science
have been integrated within HCI but the discipline has yet to develop its
own theoretical foundations. A framework will be necessary to integrate
theories that address phenomena ranging from detailed cognitive aspects of
interaction through to social interaction in electronically mediated
communities.
(ii) To synthesise diverse approaches and apply these to design of all
computer based systems. HCI is quintessentially a multidisciplinary subject
and hence can provide methods, techniques, tools and theories gathered from
other disciplines as contributions to computer science.
(iii) To scale up and increase the effectiveness of current guidelines,
techniques, methods and tools. Although HCI has been successful in
producing reusable UI software components, ISO standards (ISO 9241, 13407,
14915), and usability evaluation techniques for quality assurance, the
industrial impact of many tools and methodological research results needs
to be improved to tackle complex industrial problems
(iv) To integrate HCI within the design process. This entails a closer
integration of HCI with Software Engineering, Software Architectures and
Information System development. HCI should be providing the lead in
integrating knowledge from different disciplines within computer science,
and in developing multidisciplinary solutions for systems engineering
problems.
(v) To raise awareness of the importance of good usability engineering for
competitive advantage and product quality. This involves improving
publicity of HCI success stories as well as providing a repository of
ready-to-use HCI resources for industrial practitioners.
4. Action Plan
(i) Build on the strengths of the multidisciplinary HCI community to
develop theories of interaction for different perspectives on users and
their work.
(ii) Improve the practical utility of HCI research products and industrial
awareness by publicity campaigns, and by developing publicly available
repositories of knowledge, e.g. case studies, patterns, guidelines, methods
and techniques.
(iii) Build bridges to related subject areas within Computer Science, in
particular Software Engineering and Information Systems, to develop a
coherent, user-centred, multidisciplinary approach to complex systems
engineering.
(iv) Investigate the societal and technological drivers for HCI research
and practical contributions to process and product quality improvement,
taking government strategy such as Foresight into account. These
investigations should feed into developing the HCI research agenda.
(v) Increase HCI education and training through the provision of more
specialist MSc courses and encouraging recruitment of more PhD students
from diverse disciplines to build a cohort or multidisciplinary HCI
researchers and industry practitioners.
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