History of HCI Adapted from a talk by Jonathan Grudin ([e-mail])

1
History of HCIAdapted from a talk by Jonathan
Grudin (jgrudin_at_microsoft.com)
213 User Interface Design and Development

• Lecture 13 - April 21st, 2009

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Is HCI a Discipline?

• Dedicated conferences, journals and associations
  emerged in 70s and 80s
• Hasnt coalesced as a coherent discipline
• Includes researchers from CS, ISchools, Human
  Factors and Ergonomics, Information Systems,
  Cognitive Science, Psychology, Sociology,
  Industrial Engineering, Design, Art, etc.

3

• In the beginning the computer was so costly that
  it had to be kept gainfully occupied for every
  second people were almost slaves to feed it.
• -- Brian Shackel

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(No Transcript)
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Early Computing Jobs

1. Operation
2. Management
3. Programming

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Human Factors Ergonomics

• HFE originated after WWI / WWII, for studying
  performance of fighter pilots
• Operators were first hands-on users
• Research was on reducing training time, improving
  efficiency, and reducing the number of errors
• Improving the design of console buttons,
  switches, displays,

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• The computer industry will be forced to become
  increasingly concerned with the usage of people,
  rather then with the computers intestines.
• -- James Martin
• Design of Man-Computer Dialogues
• (1973)

8
Information Systems

• Increased affordability of mainframes (and later
  mini/micro-computers), led to business use of
  computers
• Emergence of Information Systems, within schools
  of Management, focused on improving management
  decision-making
• HCI was one of early research themes

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Computer-Human Interaction

• With the emergence of IBM PC in the early 1980s,
  computers began to be used by ordinary people,
  and not as part of their jobs
• Many initial users were programmers
• Early researchers had a background in Cognitive
  Psychology (including Card, Moran, Newell, Norman
  and others)

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• Its not enough just to establish what people
  can and cannot do we need to spend just as much
  effort establishing what people can and want to
  do
• -- Smith Green
• Human Interaction with Computers
• (1980)

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Hardware Platforms and HCI Research Fields
SIZE,COST, ETC.
1955
1965
1975
1985
1995
2005
13
Early HCI Research

1. Operation - HFE
2. Management - IS
3. Programming - CHI

14
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESCEDM
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
Shackel
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Focus on non-discretionary use
15
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESCEDM
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
Shackel
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
TAM
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Focus on non-discretionary use
16
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESCEDM
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
Shackel
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
TAM
TOCHI
HCI
Computer-HumanInteractionDiscretionary hands-on
use
POET
Emotional design
SIGCHI
Smith Green
DUX
CSCW
DIS
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Focus on discretionary use
Focus on non-discretionary use
17
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESCEDM
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
Shackel
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
TAM
Computer-HumanInteraction
Computer-ProgrammerInteraction
Computer-EngineerInteraction
Computer-HumanInteraction AntecedentsDiscretio
nary hands-on use
Softwarepsychology
Hopper
PARC
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Focus on discretionary use
Focus on non-discretionary use
18
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
Shackel
HFESCEDM
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
VisionaryWriters PrototypeBuilders
TAM
Computer-HumanInteraction
Computer-HumanInteraction antecedentsDiscretio
nary hands-on use
Bush
General-purposecomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Focus on non-discretionary use
Focus on discretionary use
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Visionary Vannevar Bush

• Professor and national science advisor - wrote As
  We May Think in 1945
• Described the hypothetical Memex device, based on
  microfilm, that could be used to store, access,
  link, share and contribute to a global knowledge
  base
• Inspiration for Hypermedia, and the modern WWW

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Visionary Ivan Sutherland

• Sutherlands PhD thesis, Sketchpad, was a
  pioneering work in graphics and HCI
• In 1963, this was one of the first GUI
  applications, using a light pen to create and
  edit interactive drawings
• Inspired Windows, Icons, GUI, Object-Oriented
  Programming, CAD, etc.
• http//youtube.com/watch?vUSyoT_Ha_bA
• http//youtube.com/watch?vBKM3CmRqK2o

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Visionary Douglas Engelbart

• Engelbarts revolutionary 1968 demo (the mother
  of all demos) demonstrated the computer mouse,
  integrated text, graphics and video real-time
  video conferencing, windowing, and the ancestors
  of email and word processing
• http//www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p3415B231F8
  D760C2

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Visionary Alan Kay

• Advised by Sutherland at the University of Utah,
  and later working at Xerox PARC, Alan Kay worked
  on the first GUI with overlapping windows, and
  developed the Smalltalk object-oriented
  programming language
• His vision for the Dynabook (1968) presaged
  modern laptop and tablet computers

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(No Transcript)
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Visionary Ted Nelson

• Sociologist and philosopher who invented the idea
  of hypertext in 1963
• Project Xanadus initial goal was to support
  non-sequential writing, where readers could
  choose their own path through a literary work
  later expanded to an interconnected network of
  digital objects
• Many of these ideas were realized (incompletely,
  according to Nelson) in Tim Berners-Lees WWW

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HUSAT and Xerox PARC

• Two pioneering labs working on HCI, both founded
  in 1970
• HUSAT, based in the UK, focused on human factors
  and ergonomics
• PARC, based in the US, focused on new hardware,
  programming languages and environments
• Integrated the mouse, GUI, Ethernet, laser
  printing, object-oriented programming, and many
  other innovations in the Xerox Alto, which was
  the first modern PC (and the inspiration for the
  Macintosh)

27
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESCEDM
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
Shackel
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
TAM
TOCHI
HCI
Computer-HumanInteraction antecedentsDiscretio
nary hands-on use
Licklider
POET
Emotional design
Sutherland
Bush
SIGCHI
Engelbart
Hopper
Nelson
Softwarepsychology
Kay
PARC
DIS
DUX
CSCW
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Focus on non-discretionary use
Focus on discretionary use
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Discretion in Computer Use

• Computing jobs exist somewhere along a continuum
  between forced, repetitive tasks and empowered,
  creative individuals
• In 1979, John Bennett predicted that more
  discretionary use would lead to more concern for
  usability (and, as a result, for subjective
  metrics)

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Early HCI Research

• Operation - HFE
• Non-discretionary, hands-on
• Management - IS
• Discretionary, hands-off
• Programming - CHI
• Discretionary, hands-on

30
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
HFESCEDM
Shackel
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
style
Cognitive
TAM
TOCHI
HCI
Computer-HumanInteraction antecedentsDiscretio
nary hands-on use
Licklider
POET
Emotional design
Sutherland
Bush
SIGCHI
Engelbart
Hopper
Nelson
Softwarepsychology
Kay
PARC
DIS
DUX
CSCW
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Journal-oriented field
Conference-oriented field
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Journals vs. Conferences

• Most scientific disciplines use conferences for
  works in progress, and journals for finished work
• HFE and IS follow this tradition
• CS (and HCI) researchers submit their best work
  to conferences, and rarely submit to journals
• As a result, CS researchers think HF and IS
  conferences are poor quality, and HF and IS
  researchers have difficulty getting their work
  into CHI

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Early CHI Conferences

• 1976 - User-Oriented Design of Interactive
  Graphic Systems (UODIGS) - SIGGRAPH
• 1981 - Joint Conference on Easier and More
  Productive Use of Computer Systems - SIGSOC
• 1982 or 1983 - First Conference on Human Factors
  in Computing Systems - SIGCHI (renamed from
  SIGSOC)

33
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESCEDM
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
Shackel
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
TAM


TOCHI
HCI
Computer-HumanInteraction antecedentsDiscretio
nary hands-on use
Licklider
POET
Emotional design
Sutherland
Bush
SIGCHI
Engelbart
Hopper
Nelson
Softwarepsychology
Kay
PARC
DIS
DUX
CSCW
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Pre-60s man-machine culture
Post-60s human-computer culture
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Culture HFE and IS

• Operator - a hands-on computer user
• Task Analysis - organizational decomposition of
  work
• Implementation - deployment of a system within an
  organization
• Man-machine interface
• Focus on expert, skilled use
• Overall goal is Automation
• Funded by government, military

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Culture CHI

• User - a hands-on computer user
• Task Analysis - cognitive decomposition of a task
• Implementation - a programmed software artifact
• Human-computer interface
• Focus on novice, initial use
• Overall goal is Augmentation
• Funded by software companies

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• We use the same methods, we study the same
  things, but we do it to get new ideas, and they
  do it to improve what already exists.
• -- Edie Adams
• speaking from the CHI perspective

37
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
HFESHPM
WWII human factors
Shackel
HFESCEDM
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
TAM
TOCHI
HCI
Computer-HumanInteraction antecedentsDiscretio
nary hands-on use
Licklider
POET
Sutherland
Bush
SIGCHI
Engelbart
Hopper
Nelson
Softwarepsychology
Emotional design
Kay
PARC
CSCW
DIS
DUX
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Design
38
CS and HCI

• Post-Mac, CHI began focusing on GUIs
• Needed programmers (CS researchers) to explore
  the design space
• More emphasis on quick-and-dirty lab studies, and
  qualitative methods
• Assimilated history of CS visionaries
• Cognitive approaches (KLM, GOMS, etc.), focused
  on expert use, eventually merged back with HFE
• CHI became user-centered, iterative,
  prototype-based design (Gould and Lewis, 1983)

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Computer Graphics HCI
10M
TX-2
PDP 1, 7
1M
100K
Alto
10K
Mac
1K
GUI-capable machine Approximate costs
are in 2006 US
100
1955
1965
1975
1985
1995
2005
40
Computer Graphics HCI
10M
TX-2
PDP 1, 7
1M
SG Iris
100K
Alto
10K
Mac
1K
GUI-capable machine Graphics research
community Graphics focused on realism Graphics
focused on interaction Approximate costs are
in 2006 US
100
1955
1965
1975
1985
1995
2005
41
Computer Graphics HCI
10M
TX-2
PDP 1, 7
1M
SG Iris
100K
Alto
Star
Lisa
10K
Altair
PC
Mac
1K
GUI-capable machine Graphics research
community Graphics focused on realism Graphics
focused on interaction Human-computer
interaction Approximate costs are in 2006 US
100
1955
1965
1975
1985
1995
2005
42
HumanFactors ErgonomicsOperation data entry
Smith Mosier
Taylor
WWI training
HFSCSTG
WWII human factors
HFESHPM
Shackel
HFESCEDM
HUSAT
Psych. of HCI
Human Factors
IJMMS
BIT
Business graphics
HCI in InformationSystemsManagerial use
Ackoff
Sociotech Participatory
GDSSs
SIGHCI
TAM
TOCHI
HCI
Computer-HumanInteraction antecedentsDiscretio
nary hands-on use
Licklider
POET
Emotional design
Sutherland
Bush
SIGCHI
Engelbart
Hopper
Nelson
Softwarepsychology
Kay
PARC
DIS
DUX
CSCW
General-purposecomputers
Transistorcomputers
Mainframes
PCs
Ecommerce
Engineering Psychology
Industrial Organizational Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Social Psychology
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Impact of Hardware Changes
Organizational InstitutionalBehavior
ConsumerBehavior
UserInterfaceRD
SoftwareRD
HardwareRD
1970s 1985 2000 2015?
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Current Status

• Human Factors Ergonomics
• Adopted many of the cognitive modeling approaches
  from early CHI research
• No revolutionary breakthroughs
• Information Systems
• Subsumed by other management disciplines
• Aligning closer to CS / CHI
• Computer-Human Interaction
• Still on the fringes of Computer Science
• Are I-Schools the future?

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For Next Time

• Guest lecture by Google team!
• Come prepared with questions
• Continue working on the Final Project!