Introduction to Humans in HCI

We are fortunate to be alive at a time when research and invention in the computing domain flourishes, and many industrial, government and research institutions are aggressively funding creative research in the field of HCI. There exists today a deep level of understanding that HCI is a multidisciplinary field, incorporating research and theories from Computer Science, Psychology, Anthropology, Education, Design, Engineering, Math and even Physics. Partly driven by a flourishing economy and certainly aided by a relatively stable global political situation, much innovation has occurred in HCI since the last edited volume on this topic. In particular, our understanding of how our knowledge about the user, the user’s context and culture all fit together to determine optimal performance and satisfaction during HCI tasks has grown immensely. Rapid advancements in our understanding of the laws governing input devices (e.g., Accot & Zhai, 2001; Chua, Weeks and Goodman, Chapter 1, this volume), the mapping of perceptual codes to display design (e.g., Proctor & Vu, Chapter 2, this volume; Ware, 2000), a deeper understanding of how humans process information to the point of automating various aspects in computer simulations (e.g., Byrne, Chapter 5 this volume, Pirolli, Card & Van Der Wege, 2001), and a much better understanding of the emotional and social aspects of HCI (e.g., Brave & Nass, Chapter 4, this volume; Picard, 1997) have occurred. In addition, the artificial intelligence community’s collaboration with HCI researchers has produced some fascinating examples of how to capture information about a user’s context in order to make better decisions about how to interact with that user (e.g., Horvitz, 1999).