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Contents | | | Preface | | | Introduction | | | Definition | | | Courses | | | Programs | | | Issues | | | References | | | Resources |
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ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction
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by
Hewett, Baecker, Card, Carey, Gasen, Mantei, Perlman, Strong
and
Verplank
Copyright © 1992,1996 ACM SIGCHI |
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Contents | | | Preface | | | Introduction | | | Definition | | | Courses | | | Programs | | | Issues | | | References | | | Resources |
Last updated: 2008-04-11 Accesses since 1997-04-17: 99,594
Table of Contents
In 1985, the ACM SIGCHI workshop on curricula in HCI (Mantei, 1985) proposed the development of courses in HCI. Since then, numerous individual courses have been developed and instituted in many parts of the world. The previous chapter has extended this work by proposing and describing an integrated set of four prototypical courses.
Some institutions, however, may wish to go further in structuring and providing HCI education for their students, and may even wish to take a leadership role in the development of entire curricula as opposed to only individual courses. The purpose of this chapter is to propose appropriate models for the design of such curricula.
We begin by suggesting one constraint that should be imposed on such designs, namely, that an HCI undergraduate curriculum generally should be embedded within an existing disciplinary curriculum rather than made to stand on its own. After listing appropriate choices for such disciplines, and discussing how such embeddings can be achieved, we propose two prototypical curricula, one in Computer Science and one in Management Information Systems. In addition we address some of the issues involved in creating an Interdisciplinary program. Examples of an HCI curriculum in Computer Science, an HCI curriculum in Information Systems, and an Interdisciplinary HCI curriculum are described in detail in the appendices.
The Curriculum Development Group feel that the adoption of a separate undergraduate degree program in HCI (major in HCI, HCI-centered program) is not now warranted. It is true that the practice of HCI entails a substantial body of knowledge, as described in Chapter 2. It is also true that HCI increasingly occupies a professional niche with a distinct identity. However, the nature of the disciplinary knowledge and the changing nature of the professional role both speak against an undergraduate program focused primarily on HCI.
Almost all the knowledge units defined in Chapter 2 lie either within or on the boundary of an established discipline. Consequently, HCI does not yet appear to have produced a unique body of knowledge which could be considered to be specific to the discipline of HCI. Furthermore, extending that existing knowledge requires a thorough grounding in the foundation areas. Finally, HCI cannot claim either a distinct research perspective or distinct research paradigm, beyond a certain uniqueness in the synthesis or dialectic of other paradigms.
While the practice of HCI can claim a certain identity, we haven't heard anyone claim that the current role is at all stable. The idea of an undergraduate degree focused exclusively on HCI therefore seems premature. At best it would be in continuing flux unbecoming a professional body. At worst it would provide a narrow training which left graduates without a base for future growth.
Nonetheless, we must also note that there are a number of students who are not well-served by the position of HCI in existing programs of study. Today's students in several disciplines typically encounter an HCI course in their senior year, if at all. At that point, a number express regret that they did not grasp the significance and appeal of HCI earlier. With most of their program complete, they are no longer able to include courses in complementary HCI disciplines. These students would like to have had the opportunity to choose an HCI orientation within their existing majors.
The CDG believes providing students the option of a set of HCI courses is both desirable and viable. An HCI orientation could inform potential students of the nature of HCI, guide their choice of supporting courses, and improve the interaction within existing HCI courses by bringing in complementary perspectives. Provided the core of existing programs is maintained, the dangers of narrow specialization can also be avoided. The remainder of this chapter contains our recommendations for curriculum developers pursuing this direction.
We noted in Chapter 2 that HCI is an integral part of a curriculum in computing, in addition to its importance as an application and testbed area for other disciplines. Our recommendations focus on an HCI orientation within computing programs. This is not intended to speak against an HCI orientation within another discipline, such as cognitive science or human factors, or within an engineering or design school. The computing disciplines are a natural place to start, and it was there that we knew of prototypical students who had managed to put together a substantial HCI orientation within their programs of study. Finally, we focus on the computing disciplines because the CDG is a committee of a Special Interest Group of the ACM, the major professional society of the computing disciplines.
Programs with computing at their center cover a broad spectrum:
Programs in electrical engineering typically incorporate the first two areas, often with an emphasis on the first area. Programs in computer science stress the second area, but may include some discussion of the first area. Programs in information systems, often developed within schools of business, information, or library science, incorporate aspects of the third area. Individual institutions may of course have programs which are broader than this minimum, and at the boundary there may appear to be little difference in the actual course content to which a student is exposed, although there may still be substantial differences in the departmental environment and perspective.
We have therefore designed frameworks for an HCI orientation within a computer science program and within a management information systems program. (Most information systems programs are called "management information systems" and are housed in a business school.) In their HCI components, these two frameworks are similar. They differ in the supporting courses which ensure the necessary overall competence in the discipline.
For an HCI orientation to be feasible, it must involve only modest change at the course level (economic feasibility) and at the program level (political feasibility). At the course level, with one or two exceptions, we have built the program framework from existing courses in existing departments. This has occasionally meant that several courses had to be included to cover the desirable HCI content, e.g., in psychology. The alternatives, new courses specifically designed for the HCI orientation, seemed unlikely to gain support in the current economic climate. Nor would they fit with the spirit of the orientation, to let each discipline speak for itself from its own paradigms.
At the program level, the inclusion of required courses in the supporting HCI disciplines implied dropping something from the existing programs. We had to choose between dropping some of the currently required courses, or eliminating some current free electives. The former choice will make it more difficult to sell the program within existing departments; the latter does not do full justice to individual differences among students and the spirit of a home-discipline based HCI orientation. As a compromise, and to make the program feasible, we have tried to do a bit of both. Thus, in the computer science framework, we recommend dropping a few required courses from typical computer science programs, some of which include a full-year of what are normally thought of as supporting mathematics courses which do not seem centrally relevant for HCI. In many computer science programs these mathematics course(s) are currently required both as a prerequisite for some computer science electives, and in the interests of general mathematical maturity.
We consider the trade-offs acceptable-to limit mathematical depth somewhat in return for depth in supporting HCI disciplines, to restrict student choice within computer science somewhat in return for a broader HCI perspective. The proposed program framework includes two specialist courses in HCI itself; we assume these would fit easily within an existing requirement of a certain number of computer science electives. We remind the reader that each proposed framework is intended as a sketch of a family of acceptable programs, and not as a single rigidly-defined program. Since course offerings within existing disciplines and beliefs about the relative importance of these offerings vary so greatly from university to university, flexibility is absolutely essential. Thus a particular institution will build on the framework according to its own identity, capabilities, student needs and faculty strengths. Examples of how this general framework can be realized or instantiated at sample institutions -- not surprisingly, our own -- are included in the appendices.
In part to achieve the desired flexibility, and in part to reflect a judgement of relative importance, when we list the courses within each discipline in Sections 4.4 and 4.5, we give three numbers, one corresponding to a minimum required number of courses in that discipline, one corresponding to a recommended number, and one corresponding to a maximum required number. We then present a list of typical courses in that discipline from which the desired number might to be selected in order to design a program for a particular university. We indicate our sense of the importance of these various courses by rating them in one of four ways:
Finally, our proposals assume a four year degree consisting of eight semesters in which students take five courses per semester. Individual universities with quarter systems or four courses per term can modify the proposals appropriately for their needs.
The field of HCI is not only a collection of topics spanning interaction techniques to design methodologies, cognitive models to experimental design, organizational issues to physical environments. It is fundamentally a tension between analysis and synthesis, between observation and design, between the emerging science of human-computer interaction and the poorly-understood craft of user-centered system design (Norman and Draper, 1986).
An HCI specialization within computer science can focus on training a new generation of system designers, builders, and implementers who are truly concerned with those who will ultimately use their software. We need students who are sensitive observers and incisive analysts; good conceptual thinkers and sophisticated theory builders; creative, imaginative, and elegant designers; and skilled, adept implementers. They should be familiar with a wide variety of relevant disciplines: the psychology of perception, cognitive science, software engineering, user interface management systems, graphic design, industrial design, organization theory, experimental design. They must be able to communicate with users, managers, programmers, psychologists, and graphic designers. They must have a deep commitment to and empathy with the problems of the computer user.
An HCI specialization within computer science must contain most of the contents of a good computer science degree. It must not be viewed as watered-down computer science. It must be an academic degree with a great deal of depth and rigor. We want our graduates to be able to go on to graduate work in human-computer interaction or in other areas of computer science. However, they should also be well prepared for careers in software development, interface design, or human factors either in software development companies or in corporate environments concerned with the planning, management, implementation, or use of software solutions.
More specifically, we organize the proposed curriculum in terms of four groups of courses:
Our proposals for faculty-wide requirements and core computer science requirements are only recommendations. We believe that almost any reasonable set of faculty-wide requirements and core computer science requirements will provide an acceptable host for embedding the HCI specialization. Thus we do not insist that faculties and departments make major changes to their programs to create the specialization, although minor adjustments and a spirit of flexibility may sometimes be necessary. One example of how this could work is a description of a curriculum for a computer science specialization in "User-centered System and Interface Design" which was recently put in place by the University of Toronto Computer Science Department. That description appears in Appendix C.
In some cases, it would be advantageous for computer science students to be able to take allied field courses that are appropriate for computer science or HCI. For example, many schools offer technical writing and graphic design for engineers. Allied field courses might be offered in more than one department and not necessarily the departments in which we list them.
While the choice of General Education requirements is and should be at the discretion of each individual university faculty, we present below a set of recommendations that convey the flavor of our thinking. The number of such courses that we propose requiring may appear low, but this is really not the case, since each student will also be required to take a large number of courses in the behavioral sciences, the social sciences, in media, and in design, courses which achieve the effect that faculty-wide distribution requirements are intended to achieve, that is, ensuring that the student's education includes some substantive breadth.
Natural science (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 4 maximum)
An educated professional working in the field of human-computer interaction should experience a laboratory-based science in at least one course. The student should gain some familiarity with and experience in carrying out an experiment, in collecting and analyzing data, and in developing and testing rigorous calculational and approximative models. Suitable examples are:
Physics 2 terms Strongly recommended Chemistry 2 terms Recommended Perception and Psychophysics 2 terms Recommended
Mathematics (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 4 maximum)
Calculus/Analysis 2 terms Required
Behavioral Science (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 2 maximum)
Introduction to Psychology 1-2 terms Strongly recommended Introduction to Sociology 1-2 terms Strongly recommended
Humanities (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 4 maximum)
Of critical importance is a one year course on effective writing (including some emphasis on speaking and presentation), which is a minimal attempt to address the need for effective communication in scientific and engineering disciplines. It should also make the students more skilled in the construction of documentation, help systems, error messages, and the like, and more sensitive to the importance of these aspect of systems and interfaces. An acceptable alternative is any other humanities course that will engage the student in critical thinking, organization of arguments and presentations, and expression in written (and hopefully also oral) form. First year Spanish, mathematical linguistics, microeconomics, art history, or symbolic logic are not appropriate substitutes.
Effective Writing and Speaking 2 terms Strongly recommended Technical Writing 2 terms Strongly recommended Philosophy 2 terms Recommended Other humanities courses 2 terms Recommended (e.g., literature, political science, history)
Core computer science requirements are at the discretion of each individual department. However, our recommendations omit some of the mathematics courses which might traditionally have been required, e.g., advanced calculus and numerical analysis. In addition, some departments require one or more courses in Mathematical Statistics. This requirement has been "transformed" into a requirement for applied statistics and empirical research methodology in the behavioral sciences.
Mathematics (Terms: 1 minimum - 2 recommended - 4 maximum)
The mathematics requirements are intended to assure a minimum of mathematics literacy and sufficient competence to deal with the theoretical courses within computer science.
Discrete Math/Algebra 1-2 terms Required and/or Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science 1 term Strongly recommended Mathematical Logic 1 term Recommended
Computer Science (Terms: 8 minimum - 8 recommended - 10 maximum)
The computer science requirements are heavy on the systems design and implementation side, a key emphasis of the program. On the other hand, we include some theoretical courses because of their importance to further study and to ensure a deep understanding of critical computer science paradigms.
The courses we list are typical of those that have been offered in Computer Science departments during the last decade. They are also fully in the spirit of what seems to have emerged from the ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force (1991), except that there is far less emphasis on hardware and computer architecture and organization.
Introduction to Computer Science 1-2 terms Required Computer Organization/Architecture 1 term Required File Structures and Data Management 1 term Required Programming Languages 1 term Required Information Structures 1 term Required Software Engineering 1 term Required Operating Systems 1 term Strongly recommended Automata Theory & Formal Languages 1 term Strongly recommended Ethics in Computer Science 1 term Strongly recommended Computability and Complexity 1 term Recommended
Human-Computer Interaction (Terms: 3 minimum - 4 recommended - 5 maximum)
As proposed in Chapter 3, we recommend splitting the current typical one semester introduction to human-computer interaction into a two semester sequence, one focusing on interface design, one on HCI science. Given the growth of the field there is simply too much material for one semester without having to leave out major blocks of material. Further, the addition of a one (and preferably two) semester thesis (or a course with a large team implementation project) will guarantee that all students actually create a significant implementation and perform some observation and evaluation on what they have built. Note: The starred courses listed below are likely not in Computer Science, but in other departments.
User Interface Design
and Development 1 term Required
Phenomena and Theories of
Human-Computer Interaction 1 term Required, if available
Senior Design Project or Thesis 1-2 terms Strongly recommended
Human Factors (*) 1 term Recommended
Cognitive Engineering (*) 1 term Recommended
Computer Science Electives (Terms: 1 minimum - 1 recommended - 2 maximum)
Computer Graphics 1 term Strongly recommended
Artificial Intelligence 1 term Strongly recommended
Information Systems
Analysis & Design 1 term Strongly recommended
Systems Engineering (*) 1 term Recommended
Database Management/
Information Retrieval 1 term A reasonable choice
Psychology and Cognitive Science (Terms: 3 minimum - 4 recommended - 6 maximum)
An essential aspect of our program is a behavioral science sequence, which is designed to present and integrate insights from Psychology and cognitive science. Also, we have recommended that students in this program take their statistics/research methods courses in an applied, behavioral science context. In these disciplines, statistics and experimental design are presented in a fashion that emphasizes their use in the empirical study of human behavior. Consequently, we feel the student must take either this sequence or the course on social science research methods listed below.
Introduction to Psychology 1-2 terms Required
Statistics (Applied) 1 term Required/strongly
recommended
The Design of Experiments 1 term Required/strongly recommended
Cognitive Psychology
or Cognitive Science 1-2 terms Required
Human Information
Processing/Performance 1 term Strongly recommended
Social Psychology 1 term Strongly recommended
Sensation and Perception 1 term Strongly recommended
Social Science (Terms: 3 minimum - 3 recommended - 5 maximum)
Another essential aspect of our program is a social science sequence which presents and integrates insights from organizational behavior, organization theory, sociology, and social psychology. The student must learn to appreciate the importance of and understand the dynamics of the organizational context in which technology is introduced. These courses are also becoming more important because of the increasing emphasis on systems and interfaces for computer-supported cooperative work.
Introduction to Sociology 1-2 terms Required
Social Science Research Methods 1 term Required/strongly recommended
Sociology of Organizations
or Organizational Behavior 1 term Strongly recommended
Social Psychology 1 term Strongly recommended
Introduction to Ethnography 1 term Recommended
Note: The student must take either the course on
Social Science Research Methods or the sequence
on statistics and experimental design listed
under Psychology and Cognitive Science.
Media and Design (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 4 maximum)
This final area may appear surprising to some readers, but it is essential. A key course is graphic design, particularly an information-centered, system-oriented graphic design course including the study of such topics as typography, symbolism, composition and layout, and color. Ideally, students should also do work with and gain insights from film making, video production, animation, industrial design, and sound design. They need to get practice in designing and crafting a variety of presentational artifacts since an important characteristic of an interface between humans and computers is that it is such an artifact. Although we do not expect our students to achieve professional competence in all of these media, we do expect awareness of each medium's strengths and limitations.
Graphic and/or Information Design 1 term Required Visual Thinking 1 term Strongly recommended Hypermedia/Interactive Media Design 1 term Recommended, if available Film Making 1 term A reasonable choice Video Design and Production 1 term A reasonable choice Animation 1 term A reasonable choice Industrial Design 1 term A reasonable choice
(Terms: 4 minimum - 8 recommended - 12 maximum)
The choice of these elective courses is totally at the discretion of the student but ought to have some coherent rationale underlying their selection. One suggestion is that selecting credits in business or management would give the student an appreciation of the commercial world in which most software and interface work is carried out. Some relevant courses include:
Introduction to Business 1 term A reasonable choice Financial Accounting 1 term A reasonable choice Innovation and Entrepreneurship 1 term Recommended Software/Business Law 1 term Recommended Other electives.....
Our recommended program specifies 32 out of 40 courses in general terms, allowing choice within academic disciplines in many cases, while still allowing room for eight electives totally at the student's discretion. Our minimal program specifies 28 courses, with room for 12 electives. We recommend that even a maximally intense program still allow room for four electives.
This section of the report is intended to outline a curriculum which would be appropriate for individuals pursuing an HCI specialization within a business school Information Systems (IS) curriculum, typically known as Management Information Systems (MIS). It assumes that a School of Business will need to maintain its existing business core requirements, as outlined in the AACSB (American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business) accreditation standards. While this assumption limits the degree of technical specialization within a new HCI specialization, it recognizes the importance of implementing a curriculum within existing academic realities. It also helps maintain the viability of the business school, which should facilitate implementation among Schools of Business.
The primary objective is to train professionals who can create and manage information systems which are sensitive to the computer-human interface. Individuals completing this curriculum should be able to participate as members of a design team, particularly within business IS environments. They should have sufficient technical knowledge to help plan, develop, evaluate, and manage systems in such functional business areas such as marketing, financial management, operations and production, and strategic planning and management. With the knowledge of business organization and planning, they should be able to help design systems which maximize organizational, as well as HCI, goals. While technical knowledge of user interface concepts will be, of necessity, less concentrated than in a computer science major, the importance of a strong business perspective within this program should still provide an excellent complement to any design team effort.
The proposed curriculum is structured as follows:
The general education, business, and information systems requirements represent a curriculum structure which incorporates the AACSB accreditation standards. The HCI area builds upon the courses and content outlined in Chapter 3 of this report.
As a result of the number of business foundation and business core courses, this proposal uses the elective portion of a typical undergraduate degree program to accommodate a specialization in HCI. In this way all traditional business and general requirements are met, but the trade-off is that very few free electives remain available to students. However, given the general nature of AACSB requirements, it may be possible to reduce or combine the number of business core requirements and still maintain both an HCI specialization and other free electives.
Finally, we must note that not all information systems programs exist within Schools of Business. Some exist within computer science environments, some in schools of information or library science, and some are independent. Each environment will impose a unique set of constraints and opportunities. To illustrate this, we include as Appendix B a description of a multidisciplinary Information Systems program in the College of Information Studies at Drexel University. This program is oriented for technical specialists rather than IS managers. Because general education and business requirements are relaxed in comparison with the program sketched below, Drexel is able to strengthen considerably the human-computer interaction, computer science, and behavioral science requirements. As with the program below, however, there is room for very few electives.
Natural Science (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 2 maximum)
Physics 2 terms A reasonable choice Chemistry 2 terms A reasonable choice Biology 2 terms A reasonable choice
Mathematics (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 2 maximum)
College Algebra 2 terms A reasonable choice Introductory Calculus 2 terms A reasonable choice
Behavioral Science (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 2 maximum)
Introduction to Psychology 2 terms Recommended Introduction to Sociology 2 terms Recommended Introduction to Anthropology 2 terms A reasonable choice
English, Speech, and Oral Communications (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 3 maximum)
Composition & Rhetoric 2 terms Strongly recommended
Effective Speech 1 term Strongly recommended
Speech for Business and
Professionals 1 term Recommended
Other humanities (Terms: 2 minimum - 2 recommended - 3 maximum)
Sequence in literature or
philosophy 2 terms Recommended
Sequence in history,
government, or politics 2 terms Recommended
Sequence in a foreign language 2 terms A reasonable choice
Business (Terms: 10 minimum - 11 recommended - 14 maximum)
Introduction to Accounting 2 terms Required Introduction to Economics 1-2 terms Required Statistics & Research Design (Applied statistics) 1-2 terms Required Marketing 1 term Required Organizational Behavior 1 term Required Legal Environment of Business 1 term Required Business Policy 1 term Required Financial Management 1 term Strongly recommended Production/Operations Management 1 term Strongly recommended Business Communications 1 term Strongly recommended Managerial Economics 1 term Recommended
Information Systems (Terms: 7 minimum - 8 recommended - 10 maximum)
The following course selections are based on the 1982 Report of the ACM Curriculum Committee on Information Systems (Nunamaker, Couger & Davis, 1982).
Computer Concepts and
Software Systems 1 term Required
Program, Data, and File Structures 1 term Required
Database Management Systems 1 term Required
Data Communication Systems
and Networks 1 term Strongly recommended
Information Systems in
Organizations 1 term Required
Information Analysis 1 term Required
Systems Design Process 1 term Required
Information Systems Projects 1 term Strongly recommended
Human-Computer Interaction (Terms: 2 minimum - 3 recommended- 3 maximum)
Human Aspects of
Information Systems 1-2 terms Required
HCI Project 1 term Strongly recommended
Special Topics: e.g., CSCW, etc. 1 term Recommended
Information Systems and Computer Science (Terms: 1 minimum -2 recommended - 2 maximum)
Software Engineering 1 term Strongly recommended Artificial Intelligence 1 term Strongly recommended Computer Graphics 1 term A reasonable choice
Psychology and Cognitive Science (Terms: 1 minimum - 2 recommended - 2 maximum)
Human Information Processing/
Performance 1 term Strongly recommended
Cognitive Psychology/
Cognitive Science 1 term Strongly recommended
Social Science (Terms: 1 minimum - 1 recommended - 2 maximum)
Social Psychology 1 term Recommended Sociology of Organizations 1 term Recommended Introduction to Ethnography 1 term Recommended
(Terms: 2 minimum - 4 recommended - 6 maximum)
Ethics in Computing 1 term Strongly recommended Animation 1 term Recommended Graphic Design 1 term Recommended Hypermedia 1 term Recommended Technical Writing 1 term Recommended Industrial Design 1 term A reasonable choice
The frameworks in sections 4.4 and 4.5 are intentionally multidisciplinary. Each seeks to build in-depth competence in one of the computing disciplines, supplemented by courses from other disciplines which support the study of human-computer interaction. Because the programs are built out of existing course units, there is no explicit attempt to integrate them around the HCI theme (except for the HCI courses themselves).
A truly interdisciplinary program would go beyond this coexistence of different disciplinary perspectives to both a mastery and an integration of the different disciplinary paradigms. Mastery of the paradigms would enable students to "think like" software engineers, psychologists, graphic designers, etc. so that communication with specialists from those disciplines does not flounder on conceptual or terminological differences. Integration of the paradigms requires that the program address the complementary nature of the various perspectives, either within courses or in some other explicit way. An interdisciplinary program could therefore prepare students for leadership roles within the development process for HCI -- integrating the skills and knowledge of a diverse development team. (This distinction between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary is expanded in Jantsch, 1972.)
In sections 4.4 and 4.5 we recommended frameworks for disciplinary programs oriented to HCI. One argument for the viability of the structure of those programs has been the fact that there have been a number of students who have managed to approximate the recommended course selections in their own programs (often at the cost of additional time to complete their degrees). We do not yet have such evidence for the success of a truly interdisciplinary program in HCI. Accordingly, we have not attempted to recommend a framework for an interdisciplinary program. However, the potential benefits of interdisciplinary programs seem to be so attractive that we do recommend the establishment of experimental interdisciplinary curricula which will help us learn whether such programs are feasible and what their structure should be. The structure of one such experiment, an interdisciplinary program that has been in existence at the University of Guelph since the fall of 1989, is outlined in Appendix D.
In the remainder of this section we describe why we believe such experiments are worthwhile, i.e., how an interdisciplinary program might be a valuable addition to programs following the frameworks of the previous sections. Students who seek to combine the study of two disciplines can often do so now by opting for a joint major, offering a selection of courses in the two areas. This could be accomplished with an HCI focus by majoring in Computer Science and Psychology, for example. There are two limitations with this approach. First, it will not provide support for the integration of the two disciplines, as outlined above. In addition, because of the breadth requirements within each of the twin majors, it will be difficult to go beyond the two major subjects to include other areas of importance for HCI.
Ideally, an HCI specialist would be equally comfortable dealing with technological issues, the needs of individuals and the concerns of their organizations and workgroups. We know of individual HCI practitioners who have achieved a substantial competence along these lines, but they often express dissatisfaction at their own lack of fundamental groundings outside the discipline they have studied formally. Therefore, we recommend that an interdisciplinary HCI curriculum should develop a sense of mastery in:
This mastery is necessary for political as well as professional reasons. We want the students in HCI to be respected by faculty from other disciplines (partly to insure that the study of HCI is also respected). The program would have to include depth within each discipline, although the breadth may be limited to areas directly supporting HCI.
What about all the other areas which are pertinent to designing effective user interfaces: graphic design, physical ergonomics, technical writing, education and training? Given that no program can cover everything, these will probably have to be treated in a cursory way through isolated electives. HCI students could come to appreciate the importance of these areas and master specific HCI-relevant skills, but will not be required to achieve broad competence.
These recommendations are deliberately somewhat speculative. Until we have more evidence from experimental programs, we will not know how successfully the various disciplines can cooperate to offer such an interdisciplinary program. But the clarity of the need for interdisciplinary approaches in HCI provides excellent motivation for both faculty and students.
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Contents | | | Preface | | | Introduction | | | Definition | | | Courses | | | Programs | | | Issues | | | References | | | Resources | | | Top |