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Jacob O. WobbrockHomtekxology, and why we should careFebruary 7, 2011Tweet In response to being asked what you do, have you ever said, “I work in the field of human-computer interaction?" Many of us have said as much, but is HCI really a field? Should it be considered one? Is it considered one already? If not, what is it? We in HCI regularly use terms like “interdisciplinary” and “multidisciplinary” to describe our endeavors. But does that mean HCI is not a field in its own right? If there exists a “typical evolution” of a topic of inquiry from a collection of like-minded but disparate researchers to a singular academic discipline, where is HCI in this process? Is it in this process? What are the implications for HCI researchers and practitioners if HCI is not considered a field or discipline? What are the advantages and disadvantages? For argument, I’ll propose that gaining recognition as a field or discipline is an important and advantageous milestone in the life of any organized area of inquiry. It seems that as fields evolve, they may position themselves to acquire more resources, personnel, recognition, and celebration when they are regarded as having an identity all their own. Computer Science was once housed in electrical (or electronics) engineering and/or mathematics. Now, every major research university has its own recognized department of Computer Science. (There must be other fields following this type of evolution.) Certainly, part of this discussion must involve what constitutes a field in the first place. It seems a field must at least comprise methods, theories, a literature, and possibly a practice (at least, for applied fields). Is this enough? And does HCI have these things? If so, do they belong to HCI, or are they just appropriated to HCI? Does it matter? (Consider HCI methods developed elsewhere and changed for HCI's purposes, e.g., design ethnography...) What's in a name? A lot. Just ask UW's department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, recently renamed from Technical Communication. If HCI is a field, does it have the right name? Anyone who has tried to create a noun for "those who do HCI" has encountered the awkwardness of, “human-computer interactionist” or “HCI-er.” (What have you tried?) When written out, “human-computer interaction” is so awfully long. Fitting this on a diploma in anything larger than 12 point font is tricky. Against this backdrop, I propose a prototype name to get us started: "hom-tek-xology." “Hom” for “human.” “Tek” for “technology.” (I figure while we’re at it, we might as well get past the “computer” given the relevance of HCI to most forms of human-technology interaction.) The “x” is for “interaction.” “--ology” gives us “the study of” or “the science of.” With this name in place, we can be homtekxologists and there can be the Department of Homtekxology. Funding, space, fancy letterheads, department chairs, job postings, and eager Ph.D. students will follow. (Right?) Or maybe we should be anthro-comp-xologists… Or hom-tek-nicists… Or… |
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These are great questions! I'm going to try answering them from a cynical, pragmatic point of view.
First, I think the whole notion of a discipline has lots its purpose. Disciplines didn't exist a few hundred years ago; people were just scholars that had questions. Issac Newton wanted to know how the natural world worked and so he investigated it. The number of people investigating these questions was small enough that scholars had no need to organize themselves beyond meeting once in a while and writing each other letters.
Since then, we've had a productive hundred years of disciplinary scholarly work, where giving names to collections of questions and methods gave credibility and order to scholarship, opening it up to the masses, rather than the privileged few. Scholars communicated to the world that there existed communities of Mathematicians, Physicians, Anthropologists, Engineers. But consider the extent to which these disciplines overlap today. Anthropologists study social media; physicists dabble in learning sciences; mechanical engineers are beginning to collaborate with biologists. Today, disciplines feel like little more than an organizational scheme meant to help the public ascribe order and common purpose to our endeavors where there often is none.
I think HCI (and sister communities like iSchools, bioinformatics, and public health) are poster-children for this lack of common purpose and mode of inquiry. The scholars within these communities often have widely varying methods, questions, and practices and teach entirely disparate bodies of knowledge and techniques. We see this manifest itself every year at CHI. That's not to say there's great benefit to getting together every year to exchange ideas, but I don't think that demands we organize ourselves around a single term.
If we really want to acquire the credibility and resources that come with disciplinary status, surely there more modern and less restrictive ways to achieve this? For example, I actually like the fact that iSchools can't define what they do and do not study. The same goes for schools of public policy and colleges of the environment. These vague, imprecise names leave the scholars labeled by them open and free to identify new kinds of inquiry and knowledge. We might lose the efficiency that comes from common knowledge and methods, but in trade we have the freedom to rethink how we see the world.
I couldn't disagree with you more. If iSchools can't define what they do and do not study then I hope they'll invest a bit of time into figure that out. Is the topic of "abstract algebra" within the purview of an iSchool?
I think that the specialization of the academy that you've mentioned has been ramping up, not ramping down. If HCI wants to think of itself as a renaissance science, then it will be considered as such -- a loose organization of individuals who can't understand one another, who do not share an ethos, and who only shallowly cover the span of human knowledge. There is a reason "renaissance man" fails to accurately describe any living individual -- the world and our knowledge has grown beyond what any human being or field of inquiry can encompass. HCI must accommodate this fact or it can play the role of a post-modern field, which no one takes seriously.
Academic disciplines rarely define themselves so explicitly that one can classify subjects as in or out. My point, sloppily stated through a false dichotomy, was that newer disciplines have a harder time of it, perhaps because the subjects they study necessarily draw upon more basic sciences. For example, about as close as computer scientists get to defining computer science is to say they study computing; the same goes for information science. Ultimately, the question is more about degree than distinction. Abstract algebra is not a subject in iSchools; most of architecture is not; some of medicine is; much of psychology is.
I completely agree that specialization is increasing. That's precisely why disciplines that are more loosely defined, but full of scholars who are facile at learning the language and methods of other disciplines, are essential to progress. Without them, there's little synthesis of our specialties.
"Like" on this thread.
When you define our field as an "-ology," you're limiting it to a "study of." Do we want this limit? Are we a science of the artificial?
What about all the builders in HCI, interested in creating the future rather than analyzing the present?
"Computer Science" had the same problem, and they chose to call themselves a science even though they do engineering. Our department of CS&E explicitly combines the two.
The problem with "human-computer interaction" is that it's neither. It's not necessarily a "study of," and it's not a "building of" either. Then we start to wonder "what are we?" Are we a field? Are we a study of something?
I conclude what we need is a new term that describes the zen-like acting/reacting, knowledge-seeking/creating double-helix combination that reflects our actual work. This is a term that doesn't exist in existing western vocabularies. Should we invent a new one? Are there any eastern philosophy buffs out there that knows the right word? Grudin?
We could be "Human-Computer Zen" or "Homo-tekx-zen." Or perhaps "Cyberyoga."