European HCI Theory - a uniquely disparate perspective
Alan Dix alan@hcibook.com www.hcibook.com/alan/
invited talk at European HCI Research special area CHI 2004, Vienna, Austria, 24-29 April 2004

abstract

Is there a uniquely European approach to theory? If anything the areas of strength such as formalism and participatory design seem disparate. Yet somehow there is a distinct flavour rising from this new new world melting pot.

In this talk I duscussed the effects of this mixed environment of disparate academic cultures, pressed together by geography and European funding initiatives. I also discyussed the need for theory and methodology in HCI in general. The spiritus mundi in HCI in gerenal seems to be looking to atheoretic aproaches, often using the richness of context as an excuse for a laxness of method. However, it is strong theory which will persist for 10 and 20 years when guidelines and case studies will have become irrelevant due to changing technology.

As an example I discussed a particular paper (anonymised) at a recent ACM sponsored conference, which appeared to be following a strong empirical methods. However, closer study shows that it was in fact using a simplistic adoption of psychological research methdology which lead to unsafe conclusions. Sadly this is not an isolated example, but is typical of HCI empiricism.

We clearly need well founded understandings of our own theoretical and methdological roots in order to establish generalisable and robust knowledge that can be used in design now and in the future. the rich interdisciplinary European HCI research community is ideally placed to address these issues.

Keywords: human-computer interaction theory, European research culture, HCI methodology, experimental method

Download: slides at one per page (PDF, 260K) or at 6 per page (PDF, 265K)

Alan Dix 5/4/2004