actions—and interactions. Questions include:

˲ What computer technologies are needed to effectively manage vast quantities of personal data?

˲ How do people learn about their digital footprint as well as the tools that can help them interrogate the systems involved and analyze the data?

˲ How do we design computer systems so as to give people feedback about, and control over, information-capturing processes?

˲ How can the capture of information and the need for privacy be balanced through design?

Taken together, these and other transformation-related questions point to a very different kind of agenda, for researchers, practitioners, and technology designers alike, from the one that was appropriate for HCI in the 1980s and 1990s.

But in addition to new questions about interaction and design, many of the issues these transformations raise are much more far-reaching. They include how society should react to the changes that computer systems engender—how their impact will be dealt with in different situations, places, and cultures—and a range of moral concerns. The sidebar here— “Questions of Broader Impact”— posits some of these changes, followed by examples of the new kinds of ethical questions they raise.

human Values in
the face of change

Should the HCI community be addressing these more far-reaching kinds of questions? And if so, is it equipped to take on the task? The participants at the Seville workshop agreed that it should—and also that a quite different mind-set is required. ¹

To begin with, researchers and practitioners in HCI need to analyze the wider set of issues that are now in play. Central to the new agenda is recognizing what it means to be human in a digital future. Human values, in all their diversity, should be charted in relation to how they are supported, augmented, or constrained by technological developments. In many ways, this is arguing for a strengthening of what has always been important to HCI: a focus on human-centered

making judgments
about new computer
technologies,
and how they
will affect us and
the social fabric
of which we are
a part, is not
straightforward.
Research methods
must capture
how the use
of technologies
may unfold over
time and in
different situations.

design, keeping firmly in mind what users—people—need and want from technology. The trouble is that the values that systems often impinge on are not the kind that can be easily inventoried. For instance, values related to technologies that capture our digital footprint may support our recollection of the past and influence ideas of selfhood just as much as they might imply more measurable ideals related to bureaucratic efficiency (for example, keeping good records). Computational technology affects both, though the audit of one is considerably more difficult than that of the other.

It follows that the field of HCI needs to extend its approach in order to encompass the often complex and diverse patterns of human interests and aspirations. This means that the methods of HCI, and the disciplines it engages with, will have to change.

Important steps have already been taken in this direction—in the concept of “use,” for example. A growing number of researchers and practitioners have begun explicating the nature of use as a question of “experience” and how it unfolds over time. This has largely involved the definition of subjective qualities. Analysts have used concepts like pleasure, aesthetics, fun, and flow, on the one hand, and boredom, annoyance, and intrusiveness, on the other, to describe the multifaceted nature of “felt” experiences. ¹⁰ In addition, HCI specialists such as Norman¹¹ have modeled how we respond to technology at a visceral or emotional level as well as at a deliberate and reflective one. They have also described a more comprehensive life cycle of our response to technology, from when it first grabs our attention and entices us, through our ongoing relationship with that technology, and finally to when it is eclipsed by other technologies and we abandon it. These ways of conceptualizing users’ experience have opened up many new possibilities for research and design.

An emphasis on the individual and the phenomenology of his or her experiences is a natural consequence of HCI’s traditional starting point: the user. But it should be obvious that as HCI moves forward and seeks to address the changes cited previously, the user, however well understood, is