A collaborative effort
will be particularly
helpful for HCI
educators and learners
in areas where HCI
is starting to be
recognized as an
emergent field of study
in response to growth
in interactive
technology design
and development.

March + April 2013

interactions

behalf; the opinions of industry practitioners are divided. While students articulated concerns about making a choice early on between industry or academia, some more seasoned professionals, later in their careers, reflected on the blurring between the two arenas as positive, with opportunities for collaborative engagement on joint projects.

Notably, however, our table of topics rated most and least highly by our different constituencies clearly shows a disjoint between industry and academic professionals (see Table 3). While industry professionals give high ratings to topics such as change management, e-commerce, product development, and product management, and low ratings to topics such as health informatics and ubiquitous computing, academic professionals rate ubiquitous computing highly and change management low. We are loath to derive too many hard-and-fast conclusions from this data, but on the surface it appears that these disjoints reflect the relative amount of importance placed upon near- and medium-term goals for product launch and maintenance versus longer-term goals in industry, and the more agenda-setting and exploratory role afforded to research in academic institutions. Since its incept, HCI has been focused on operationalizing general principles derived from abstract principles. This includes instantiating abstractions into products, which includes producing frameworks and processes (including change management and product development) that are tactically appropriate to enable strategic success. In addition to driving research insights forward academically, HCI is charged with providing better development methods that draw on and honor those insights.

Summing Up, Looking Forward

At the highest level, the results of our research echo the observations of Hewett et al.’s 1992 report, in which the authors state: “There is currently no agreed upon definition of the range of topics which form the area of human-computer interaction” [ 6].

In some respects, this is surprising, given the passage of time and the incredible advances we have witnessed in technology development, plus the growing awareness of the role of HCI, particularly in consumer product development. This awareness has encouraged some companies to employ HCI specialists, which in turn influences universities to develop HCI programs and courses. In other respects, it is not surprising that the fundamental issues that emerged from our research are similar to those identified by Hewett et al.: Our multidisciplinarity is an enduring strength but also a continual challenge. We believe that there is cause for great optimism—more and more people in our discipline feel empowered to participate in discussion of these tensions. In 1992, HCI education was relatively new. Very few people outside of SIGCHI and other sister professional communities felt their voices could, or would, be heard. At that time, most HCI educators knew all the courses and programs that were offered across the world. Now, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of HCI courses. But does this signal success? It depends on whom you ask. For some, the answer is a resounding “yes!” For others, there is concern about disciplinary focus and differentiation, “quality control,” and “brand.” Certainly, we need a deeper understanding of the issues raised here, and issues that are emerging as a result of developments