A Moving Target—The Evolution of Human-Computer Interaction

'users,' HF&E and IS used the term 'operators.' Especially in IS, a user could be a manager whose only contact with
the computer was reading printed reports. For CHI, 'operator' was demeaning and users were always hands-on users.
(In software engineering, 'user' often means 'tool user'—which is to say, developers.) These and many other distinctions
may not seem critical, but they lead to serious confusions or misconceptions when reading or listening to
work from another discipline.
In HF&E and IS streams, 'task analysis' refers to an organizational decomposition of work, perhaps considering
external factors; in CHI 'task analysis' is a cognitive decomposition, such as breaking a text editing move operation
into select, cut, select, and paste. In IS, 'implementation' meant organizational deployment; in CHI it was a synonym
for development. The terms 'system,' 'application,' and 'evaluation' also had different connotations or denotations in
the different fields. Significant misunderstandings resulted from failures to appreciate these differences.
Different perspectives and priorities were also reflected in attitudes toward standards. Many HF&E researchers
contributed to standards development, believing that standards contribute to efficiency and innovation. A view widespread
in the CHI community was that standards inhibit innovation. Both views have elements of truth, and the positions
partly converged as Internet and Web standards were tackled. However, the attitudes reflected the different
demands of government contracting and commercial software development. Specifying adherence to standards is a
useful tool for those preparing requests for proposals, whereas compliance with standards can make it more difficult
for a product to differentiate itself.
Competition for resources was another factor. Computers of modest capability were extremely expensive for much
of the time span we have considered. CHI was initially largely driven by the healthy tech industry; whereas research
in the other fields was more dependent on government funding that waxed and waned. On upswings, demand for
researchers outstripped supply. HCI prospered during AI winters, starting with Sutherland’s use of the TX-2 when AI
suffered its first setback and recurring with the emergence of major HCI laboratories during the severe AI winter of
the late 1970s. When computer science thrived, library schools laboring to create information science programs had
to compete with expanding computer science departments that were themselves desperate enough to award faculty
positions to graduates of masters programs.
A generational divide was evident in the case of CHI researchers who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. Many did
not share the prior generation’s orientation toward military, government, and business systems, and reacted negatively
to the lack of gender neutrality that is still occasionally encountered in the HF&E and IS 'man-machine interaction'
literature. Only in 1994 did International Journal of Man-Machine Studies become International Journal of Human-
Computer Studies. Such differences diminished enthusiasm for building bridges and exploring literatures.
Challenges presented by regional cultures merit a study of their own. The presence in North America of the strong
non-profit professional organizations ACM and IEEE led to developments not experienced elsewhere. Whether due to
an entrepreneurial culture, a large consumer market, or other factors, the most successful software and Web applications
originated in the United States and shaped the direction of research there. In Europe, the government role remained
central; research favored technology use in large organizations. To protect domestic industries, some governments
support propped up mainframe companies longer than their U.S. counterparts and discouraged imports of
new U.S. technologies. The convergence and divergence of North American and European CSCW factions illustrates
how the resulting differences in perspective can impede co-mingling. HCI research in Japan followed the United
States emphasis on the consumer market. After focusing on methods to design and develop Japanese-language
individual productivity tools, for the domestic market, on computers oriented toward English, much research turned to
language-independent communication tools for the international market (Tomoo Inoue, personal communication,
March 2012).
Interdisciplinarity and multicultural exploration are intellectually seductive. Could we not learn by looking over
fences? But another metaphor is the Big Bang. Digital technology is exploding, streaming matter and energy in every
direction, forming worlds that at some later date might discover one another and find ways to communicate, and then
again, might not.
LOOKING FORWARD: TRAJECTORIES
The future of HCI will be dynamic and full of surprises. The supralinear growth of hardware capability confounds efforts
at prediction—we rarely experience supralinear exponential change and do not reason well about it. In the United
States, NSF is tasked with envisioning the future and providing resources to take us there, yet two major recent
HCI initiatives, 'Science of Design' and 'CreativIT' (focused on creativity), were short-lived. Nevertheless, extrapolations
from observations about the past and present suggest possible developments, providing a prism through which
to view other work and perhaps some guidance in planning a career.
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