Acknowledged as a field of study in 1982, Human-Computer Interaction is a research discipline whose origin comes from the idea that non-engineers now have access to computers or, in other words, when computers became mainstream.
Today we interact with computers constantly, obvious things like phones, PCs, tablets, watches all contain computers. And less obvious things like dishwashers, ATMS and alarm clocks are all capable of performing complex tasks good enough to send astronauts to the moon. It’s not only the technical world, but now through social media and our ever increasing interconnectedness, society and culture are defined by technology and its increasing dependance upon it. As Dr Mehmet Aydin Baytaş puts it “HCI is basically the defining feature of human life and culture today”.
HCI is essentially a field of study based on the interaction of humans and computer technology. HCI researchers observe the way in which humans interact and use computers and they look at ways to design these interactions to improve the overall experience of existing interfaces, or to find novel ways to interact with new technologies. It’s a very broad discipline.
Existentially speaking HCI is an academic discipline, and a practitioner is part of the scientific community. So they read and write papers, teach, attend conferences, perform research. In short HCI practitioners tend to be researchers and academics, not necessarily someone who creates products.
HCI is part of computer science, but it overlaps and builds on some areas of social sciences and humanities. As such an HCI researcher must have a good command of the basics of computer science topics such as (algorithms, coding theory, machine learning, software engineering, and many more). The HCI researcher should also have a foundation in social sciences and humanities, including psychology, critical theory, literature, the arts and design. Did I mention it was a broad topic?
All of this helps to make sense of the place of computers in our lives. Humans contain multitudes and computers are a reflection of human needs and wants in terms of form and function, therefore the study of this multitudinal relationship requires a broad understanding of human-nature as well as computer science.
In summary, HCI is a field of academic research within computer science, that uses methods and assumptions from social sciences and humanities. Phew.
Not only are the 90’s responsible for that summer when I bleached my hair and wore a beaded necklace it was also the time when HCI really exploded as a practice, most notabably because the Internet and web browsing in general went mainstream. Another contributing factor to the proliferation of HCI as a practice was around 2004 when there was shift from authored content on the web to user generated content, paving the way for the extreme commodification of content and attention that the web is today.
I think the question of how HCI can help us as designers and researchers in UX is a philosophical one. Essentially what it means to be human plays a fundamental role in HCI – it’s the human in the equation that defines what we create, how it works and what good it is. How we define ourselves as the operators of technology where the technology is increasingly abstracted and out of reach intellectually, or controlled by corporations, plays an increasingly vital role within the discipline, and therefore HCI guides our role in research and design enabling practitioners to be cognisant of humanity’s place.
The key principles of HCI are:
Be human-centric – focus on the people no matter what you’re doing. From an end-to-end perspective, make sure everyone is considered.
Find the right problem – try and solve the fundamental route problem
Everything is a system – Everything is interconnected, you must consider the system as a whole. It’s the end the result that matters, what is the real goal for the people who use our products
Human factors and UX design
Human factors and ergonomics is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. UX design is about structuring the interactions between humans and computers. HCI is about understanding the interaction between humans and computers.
UX design focuses on structuring interactions between humans and computers, while HCI is about understanding these interactions. UX can be seen as a subset of HCI, as designing experiences requires first empathising with users and understanding their interactions. The relationship between UX and HCI is symbiotic; user research informs design, and the success or failure of those designs deepens our knowledge of HCI.
Research through design (remember from earlier?)
So how can considering HCI help us as designers and researchers in UX? The best way is to perhaps combine the two disciplines.
The term “Research Through Design” was coined by Christopher Frayling, a professor at the Royal College of Art, in 1993. From the Bauhaus to the modern day design has grown as a core component of research. Design is often the domain of the professional world, of business and product creation. By incorporating design in to research the academic world gained valuable methodologies and practices that added a new dimension to research as a whole, it also gives design a place at the academic table. It’s a two way street, the academic world gained a design dimension and the practice of design adapted to the scientific method in order to publish research.
In many ways “Research Through Design” can be considered a research project that actually creates a product, and is a way for design practitioners to use their skills within a research and experimental way.
Overall research through design brings tighter design and scientific research, it tells us about people and design.
HCI, UX and Research Through Design are foundational ways of thinking “in design “ in a world that is increasingly and constantly connected.