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