A Moving Target—The Evolution of Human-Computer Interaction

Figure 1. Four fields with major HCI research threads. Acronym expansions are in the text.
The Formation of ACM SIGCHI
Figure 1 identifies research fields that directly bear on HCI. Human Factors and Information Systems have distinct
subgroups that focus on use of digital technologies. Relevant Computer Science research is concentrated in CHI, the
subgroup primarily concerned with discretionary hands-on computer use. Other computer science influences—
computer graphics, artificial intelligence, office systems—have been discussed in the text but are not included in Figure
1. The fourth field, Information, began as support for specialists but may come to exert the broadest influence of
all.
Decreasing microcomputer prices attracted discretionary hobbyists. In 1980, as IBM prepared to launch the PC, a
groundswell of attention to computer user behavior was building. IBM, which like many hardware companies had not
sold software separately, had decided to make software a product focus. Several cognitive psychologists joined an
IBM group that included John Gould, who had been publishing human factors research since the late 1960s. They
initiated empirical studies of programming and studies of software design and use. Other psychologists who in 1980
led recently formed HCI groups were Phil Barnard at the Medical Research Council Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge,
England (which drew funding from IBM and British Telecom); Tom Landauer at Bell Laboratories; Donald
Norman at the University of California, San Diego; and John Whiteside at Digital Equipment Corp.
From one perspective, CHI was formed by psychologists who saw an opportunity to shape a better future. From
another, it was formed by managers in computer and telecommunications companies who saw that digital technology
would soon be in the hands of millions of technically unsophisticated users whose interaction needs were unknown.
Invention or evolution based on empirical observation-- competing views of CHI's role or roles were present from the
outset.
Xerox PARC and CMU collaborators influenced the field in several ways, described in this section and the next.
The 1981 Xerox Star, with its carefully designed graphical user interface, was not a commercial success (nor were a
flurry of GUIs that followed, including the Apple Lisa), but it influenced researchers and developers—and the design
of the Macintosh.
Communications of the ACM created a “Human Aspects of Computing” department in 1980. The next year, Tom
Moran edited a special issue of Computing Surveys on “The Psychology of the Computer User.” Also in 1981, the
ACM Special Interest Group on Social and Behavioral Science Computing (SIGSOC) extended its workshop to cover
interactive software design and use. In 1982 a conference in Gaithersburg, Maryland on “Human Factors in Compu-
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