and universal features that will sell as many products as possible.

PROBLEMS

When discussing the Stephen Hawking case, we were critical because what he experienced is a luxury for the very few. While we’re interested in the insights one can get out of doing such a project, it is also important that insights, designs, and solutions get spread to greater numbers of people in similar use settings with similar problems.

Unfortunately, we have seen a number of cases in literature over recent years that are either too flamboyant or too do-gooding, both being equally problematic. Susanne Bødker [ 1] discusses how unusual or well-meaning communities are often chosen over less extraordinary or less politically correct ones, even if the research outcome could be the same. Similarly, we see cases in HCI literature that seem to intrigue us because they are remarkable, not because of the research value.

For example, in the child-computer interaction field, children with high-functioning autism are involved more often than children with other disabilities. This phenomenon cannot be explained by the prevalence of autism in society alone, but also by the availability of research funding, and perhaps because such children are less difficult to work with and easier to identify with than other groups.

This skewed focus is problematic
when technologies are introduced into
the real world, which often consists of
mixed groups of people and situations.

To avoid false generalizations, we need methods to move between one kind of particular and another, methods that we do not encounter in the literature, as far as we know.

Many of our classic HCI usability methods cannot be made to work because they presuppose generalization.

Dan Olsen [ 2] argues that usability evaluation has three assumptions: a standardized task, a relatively small problem scale, and walk-up-and-use, which we argue rarely hold in research for the particular. Doing research for the particular needs to put an end to such practices.

Long-term collaboration often results in a dependency between the users and researchers, for example, W

means that theories, methods, technologies, and applications are created in the context of particular people, undertaking particular endeavors, with particular agency.

In this case, the goal is not to abstract the findings to such a general level that we lose track of how they are useful in this situation.

The particular people that we have studied, and worked with, should understand the findings and see how they apply to and benefit them.

A famous example of a particular approach is that of the late Stephen Hawking, who lived with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

A team of engineers at Intel designed technology for Hawking, with great success. There were many benefits of having the luxury of an entire team designing for one particular person. Not only was Hawking literally given a voice but there were also significant contributions to interactive device design and text-to-speech software systems. In an ideal world, everyone would benefit from such a personalized approach.

One could see Hawking as a Formula One driver. As with Formula One cars, most people would probably not be able to “drive” Hawking’s setup without continuous support from a team of technicians. And certainly Intel would not expend this amount of effort on any other individual, meaning that the Hawking approach is not available to everybody. While we’re interested in the kinds of insights you get from such a project with the very particular, we are critical of the way that these insights may not have spread to other people in similar use settings, with similar problems, with the same level of commitment. Though the technology has been open sourced, we ask ourselves: Where are the HCI papers that design and study technology for other people with ALS?

BENEFITS

There are several benefits to taking a very particular approach in HCI. It can enable us to capture the richer and more complex nuances of a particular situation or user, hence also directly challenging the assumptions we make as researchers. Accordingly, it makes you a better researcher when you have to rethink your assumptions and adapt your methods. It’s also harder and more challenging when you cannot simply use your standard method and setup, and need to develop new methods for the research at hand.

We worry that the craving for generalization does not always increase validity or impact, but instead may at times abstract reality into a form where results can no longer be fed back to actual design questions in the real world—which is exactly one of the benefits of doing research for the particular. Accordingly, rather than insisting on generalization at all times, we suggest a cumulation of particulars.

These particulars stand on their own. Reducing them to their generalizable aspects, as is common in the natural sciences, would eliminate what makes them particular in the first place.

One benefit of such an approach is that it allows researchers to do impactful work, hence also making a big difference in one person’s life.

Another is the possibility of studying local and situated practices and the appropriation of the technology, where the users feel ownership and use the technology to achieve their goals in new ways. With this approach, we can learn from the unusual and unexpected ways in which people use technology.

The possibility of doing such research may ultimately be what sets academic research apart from the work in large technology companies.

Academic research may address alternatives and explore exceptions, whereas research for technology companies needs to lead to general

T

Taking a very particular approach can
enable us to capture the richer and more
complex nuances of a particular situation
or user, hence also directly challenging
the assumptions we make as researchers.