9. O’Connell, K. The untold history of multitouch. The Link. Summer 2017 issue. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/sites/default/ files/TheLink_Summer2017.pdf

10. Christensen, C. M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When Ne w Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business Review Press, 1997.

11. Xiao, R., Hudson, S.E., and Harrison, C. Supporting responsive cohabitation between virtual interfaces and physical objects on everyday surfaces. Proc. of the 9th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems. ACM, New York, 2017, Article 11.

12. Xiao, R., Harrison, C., and Hudson, S.E. WorldKit: Rapid and easy creation of ad-hoc interactive applications on everyday surfaces. Proc. of the 31st Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, 879–888.

13. Raskar, R., Welch, G., Cutts, M., Lake, A., Stesin, L., and Fuchs, H. The office of the future: A unified approach to image-based modeling and spatially immersive displays. Proc. of the 25th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. ACM, New York, 1998, 179–188; http://doi.acm. org/10.1145/280814.280861

14. Underkoffler, H., Ullmer, B., and Ishii, H. Emancipated pixels: Real-world graphics in the luminous room. Proc. of the 26th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. ACM Press/ Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, 1999, 385–392; http://dx.doi. org/10.1145/311535.311593

15. Wellner, P. The DigitalDesk calculator: Tangible manipulation on a desk top display. Proc. of the 4th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. ACM, New York, 1991, 27–33; http://doi.acm. org/10.1145/120782.120785

16. Gartner Hype Cycle; https://www.gartner. com/technology/research/methodologies/ hype-cycle.jsp

17. Hecht, B., Wilcox, L., Bigham, J.P., Schöning, J., Hoque, E., Ernst, J., Bisk, Y., De Russis, L., Yarosh, L., Anjum, B., Contractor, D., and Wu, C. It’s time to do something: Mitigating the negative impacts of computing through a change to the peer review process. ACM Future of Computing Blog. Mar. 29, 2018; https://acm-fca. org/2018/03/29/negativeimpacts/

 

Chris Harrison is the Habermann Chair and an assistant professor of human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, directing the Future Interfaces Group (www. figlab.com). His lab broadly investigates novel sensing and interactive technologies, especially those that empower people to interact with small computing devices in big ways.

→ [e-mail]

www.chrisharison.net CONCLUSION

I want to leave you with one final chart: the Hype Cycle, created by Gartner [ 16], which I’ve populated with HCI areas from a 10,000-foot perspective (Figure 8). Some people hate this chart, but I find it to be a useful visual shorthand to see where things lie, and where HCI innovation can have the most influence. I encourage readers to plot their own areas of interest on this chart (or email me angry messages if I put your field somewhere awkward).

The astute reader might notice that this hype cycle curve is not all that dissimilar from the HCI Intellectual Impact Curve I proposed earlier. Indeed, they track fairly well, except for one key difference: In the earliest stages, external expectations are low, but HCI innovation is highest.

This mismatch often means the
HCI community is the biggest
champion for a technology vision
and in no small part contributes
to the eventual peak of inflated
expectations. Getting people excited
about technology and drawing them
into our human-centered vision of
the future is an enviable position,
and so I have no qualms about
being off-cycle from the business
innovator’s dilemma. Yes, it does
mean that sometimes our research
and innovations get labeled as
esoteric and impractical, which has
significant implications for tax-
payer-funded science and education,
as well as for the sustainability of
industrial research labs. But it also
means we get to shape the narrative
and cast light on important human-
computer problems, hopefully with
broader impacts in mind [ 17]. This
is a great responsibility that we
should exercise and celebrate as a
community. So let’s pull out those
Post-its and markers and get to
work.

Endnotes

1. Rogers, E.M. Diffusion of Innovations

(1st ed.). Free Press of Glencoe, New York, 1962.

2. Utterback, J.M. and Abernathy, W.J. A dynamic model of product and process innovation. Omega 3, 6 (1975), 639–656.

3. Qeexo, Inc.; http://www.qeexo.com

4. Myers, B. A. A brief history of human computer interaction technology. ACM Interactions 5, 2, (Mar. 1998), 44–54.

5. Harrison, C., Tan, D., and Morris, D. Skinput: Appropriating the body as an input surface. Proc. of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, 2010, 453-462. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753394

6. Xiao, R., Cao, T., Guo, N. Zhuo, J.J., Zhang, Y., and Harrison, C. Lumi Watch: On-arm projected graphics and touch input. Proc. of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, 2018, Paper 95; https://doi. org/10.1145/3173574.3173669

7. Buxton, B. The long nose of innovation. Business Week. Jan. 2, 2008

(Rev. May 30, 2014).

8. Engelbart, D.C. and English, W.K. A research center for augmenting human intellect. Proc. of the December 9–11, 1968, Fall Joint Computer Conference, AFIPS ‘ 68 Fall. ACM, New York, 1968, 395–410. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.1145/1476589.1476645

DOI: 10.1145/3274564 COP YRIGH T HELD BY AUTHOR. PUBLICATION RIGHTS LICENSED TO ACM. $15.00
Ex
pe
c
t
at
ions
INNOVATION
TRIGGER
PEAK OF INFLATED
EXPECTATIONS
TROUGH OF
DISILLUSION
SLOPE OF
ENLIGHTENMENT
PLATEAU OF
PRODUCTIVITY

Implantables
On-Skin
Computing
Muscle-Computer
Interfaces
Brain-Computer
Interfaces
Intelligent Tutoring
Systems
Projected AR
Volumetric displays
Affective Computing
Domestic Robots
Intelligible/Explainable AI
Context-Aware Computing Smart Home & Appliances
Augmented Reality
Virtual Agents/Assistants
Mobile Health Sensing
Ambient Displays
Personal Fabrication
Crowdsourcing
Activity Recognition
Surface Computing

3D Television
Gamification
Recommender Systems
Social TV/Video
Smartwatches
Virtual Reality
Voice Interfaces
Quantified Self
Smart Glasses
Mobile/Pico Projection
MOOCs
Consumer 3D printing
Gesture Control
Electronic Textiles/Clothing

Figure 8. HCI topics plotted along a Hype Cycle (opinions the author’s), adapted from [ 16].