Colin’s review of week 1 paper ‘Human-computer interaction as science’

In his 2015 paper ‘Human-computer interaction as a science’, author Stuart Reeves argues that the HCI discipline suffers from anxieties of incoherence and inadequacy. He claims that these anxieties have roots dating back to HCI’s origins in the early 1980s when cognitive science theory was applied to input device design, a pairing which gave rise to the scientific design space which still influences HCI today. He goes on to argue that notions of both the scientific and design are confused within the HCI field and that ultimately HCI researchers should not be too concerned about being seen to be ‘scientific’ but instead should concern themselves with rigour as it exists within whichever academic field is most appropriate to the task at hand. Related to this is his assertion that researchers should not worry too much about HCI being a discrete discipline and instead should actively work towards making HCI an interdisciplinary subject.

 

Reeves makes his ‘intellectual inadequacy’ argument by juxtaposing examples (chiefly gained from conference panel discussions) of researchers attempts to make HCI more scientific alongside examples that show HCI’s scientific credentials lacking.

 

His ‘incoherence’ argument is supported by examples of where (presumably key) researchers within the HCI field have conflicting views about the nature of HCI and its relationship with science, examples of where researchers ask what HCI should be (thus implying that they are currently unclear as to what HCI is), and evidence of its rapid expansion and the resulting overlap with other disciplines, as well as documenting HCI’s lack of a shared set of research goals.

 

He goes on to argue that HCI should not aspire to the high ideals of the natural sciences (where ideals include accumulation, replication and generalisation) as the sciences frequently fall short of achieve these ideals themselves.

Whilst I accept that concerns have been expressed about HCI as a discrete scientific discipline, after reading this paper I am not really clear exactly what the problem is i.e. what is the relationship between the anxieties expressed by HCI researchers and the utility of HCI as a subject? I think the author could have made a stronger and clearer case for the benefits for HCI researchers not being tied to ‘the scientific’ and for HCI accepting a place as an interdisciplinary subject, beyond alleviating the anxieties felt by some HCI researchers.

 

The paper I have chosen this week is entitled Using HCI techniques to design a more usable programming system. It’s from 2002 and by Pane, Myers and Miller and can be found here