What is HCI and why is it important?

The world we live in has become suffused with computer technologies. They have created change and
continue to create change. It is not only on our desktops and in our hands that this is manifest; it is in
virtually all aspects of our lives, in our communities, and in the wider society of which we are a part.
Researchers and practitioners within the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) strive to understand
and shape our relationship with technology. To use this an extensive set of lenses, tools and methods are
employed that put human values centre stage and consider both positive and negative aspects of how we
as interact with digital technology. On one hand, people use technology to pursue healthier and more
enjoyable lifestyles, expand their creative skills with digital tools, and instantly gain access to information
never before available. On the other, governments become more reliant on computers to control society,
criminals become more cunning via digital means, and people worry more about what information is
stored about them.

[Image source: Chakraborty et al., 2018]

So, basically HCI is a broad field. Work in HCI can range from for example: Understanding how to
design the interface of the self-service checkout at a supermarket to give allowances to make shopping
more efficient while also giving constraints to prevent theft to studying the long-term impact of social
media use in young people. It is also very much a multidisciplinary field including disciplines such as
computer science, design, and psychology as you can see in the illustration above.

HCI overlaps with areas such as user-centered design (UCD), user interface (UI) design and user
experience (UX) design. In many ways, HCI was the forerunner to UX design. Despite that, some
differences remain between HCI and UX design. Researchers of HCI tend to be more academically
focused, they're involved in scientific research and developing empirical understandings of users.
Conversely, UX designers are almost invariably industry-focused and involved in building products or
services—e.g., smartphone apps and websites. Regardless of this divide, the practical considerations for
products that UX professionals concern themselves with have direct links to the findings of HCI
specialists about users’ mindsets and HCI specialists also learn about users from the designs of UX
professionals.
The study of Human-Computer Interaction has developed over time since the field emerged in the 1980's
when the focus moved from human factors to human values. Below is an outline of the three established
"waves" of HCI and an introduction to the up and coming fourth wave.

First Wave (circa 1980s): The Era of Personal Computing

- The first wave of HCI has roots in psychology and human factors, optimising interaction, pragmatic
solutions, and objective measures.

- There was an overarching focus on building systems that were easy to use. Good and bad designs were
discussed from the perspectives of engineering.

- Some of the concepts are now considered to be outdated such as how interaction was understood as man
plus machine. Although human factors were considered in the design to study characteristics of humans
that enable efficient interaction with computing systems.

Second Wave (circa 1990s): The Era of Group Work

- The second wave was heavily influenced by cognitive science where the goal was to understand people
as situated actors who possess a set of skills and shared practices based on work experience.

- Work focused on tasks, usability, and efficiency and used controlled lab experiments to measure
performance or designing in context, for existing work practices, with the people involved.

- Users are positioned as passive sources of information about the domain, or as informants used to
determine which of two or more design alternatives are preferred, alternatives that they did not have a say
in constructing.

Third Wave (circa 2000): The Era of Ubiquitous Computing

- Focused on creating compelling and engaging solutions based on understanding technology use in the
real world and how systems fit into the contexts of daily life
- The third wave of HCI is inclusive and the social context is the king. Participants are not only involved
in the design process as subjects but they are the driving force as co-creators.

- A new focus on a broader social-cultural context where people’s identities (social orientation) and
experiences are front and centre to create better designs for our society as a whole.

Fourth Wave (now): The era of Post-Interaction Computing?

- This up and coming fourth wave is characterised by a number of shifts in how we interact with
computers such as the scale, speed, and ubiquity of computing, alongside its seeming increasing visibility
in public life and invisibility in our daily lives.

- Where the third wave moved computing into the forefront of our lives and sought to design computing
systems for interaction, the fourth wave is more concerned with designing interaction for and with
computing — data mining, analytics, advertising, machine learning etc.

Design frameworks and methods

The process of designing new technologies is complex. Design frameworks help structure the process,
spark innovation, and stimulate collaboration. They are essential building blocks for guiding design
solutions. There are multiple different design frameworks that that a design team could use depending on
the problem complexity, people, resources, and the organisation’s culture. See for example:
The Design Thinking Framework

The Design Thinking framework is a solution-focused approach to finding and solving problems. It’s
useful to tackle complex problems that aren’t well defined, by understanding human needs to re-frame the
problem in a human-centric way, so that many ideas can be created to prototype and test and learn from
likely solutions.

Design sprint framework

The Design Sprint is a time boxed process for solving problems through design, prototyping, and testing
ideas with final users and customers, to solve design problems quickly. The design team go through the
entire process each week to incrementally improve the product over time.

Lean UX

Lean UX is an incredibly useful technique when working on projects where the Agile development
method is used. Traditional UX techniques often don’t work when development is conducted in rapid
bursts – there’s not enough time to deliver UX in the same way.

Applying Design Frameworks

You will notice that, although differing in temporality or specificity, each of the example frameworks has
the same basic formula and are all iterative. The first phase consists of some kind of initial research and
discovery phase to speak with users, understand the problem, and come up with ideas.

1. Initial Research and Discovery Phase

Methods to use during this phase.

Use generative rather than evaluative research methods such as desk research, observations, interviews
(better for qualitative data), and surveys (better for quantitative data) to bring forth new ideas during the
discovery phase. The goal is to gain a deep understanding of people’s motivations, pain points, behaviours
etc. This will help you to identify a problem statement, frame the relevant problem to be solved, and
gather enough evidence to move forward confidently.

2. Prototyping Phase
The second phase you will identify among the three frameworks is prototyping. Prototypes can serve a
number of purposes during the design process and design teams iterate and improve their design for
example: evaluating and testing potential designs within the team or with users, clarifying implementation
viability and identifying potential issues or as a proof of concept for the client.

Methods to use during this phase

Paper Interfaces, Wizard of Oz, sketching, storyboarding, video prototype, click-through prototype, value
proposition

3. Test/Check/Validate Phase

The final phase in each iteration of any design process is to test/check/validate your design. This does not
just happen at the very end but incrementally throughout the process.

Methods to use during this phase

Usability testing with wireframes/mockups lab testing, heuristic evaluation, follow-up
interview/questionnaire (evaluative rather than generative research), and A/B testing.
User Flows and User Journeys
What is a user flow, and what is it good for?
A user flow is a chart or diagram showing the path a user will take in an application to complete a task.
Product teams build user flows to help work out how to design products, make sure they present the
correct information to users at the right time and identify issues with the interface that stop the users from
completing tasks easily and in as few steps as possible.
User flows are often used in combination with User Journeys, and share some of the same goals:

● Can be used in design or evaluation to understand and optimize the user experience.
● Are structured around a user goal and examined from the perspective of the user interacting with
the system, not the aims of the company or what is expected of the product.
● Can be used as a strong, visual method of explaining the results of HCI research to development
teams.
The difference between them is in the level of detail. A user journey follows a scenario of a user,
indicating the tasks they would do to perform a high-level goal with the product or system. A user flow,
on the other hand, would follow a user interacting with the system step-by-step as they carry out one of
these tasks.

So while some (many) people might use these terms interchangeably, they are not the same. A journey is
much broader than a flow. A journey can include all the touchpoints a customer might have with a
company — from seeing some of its advertising to deciding to visit the website, to downloading the app
and going through the purchase process only to interact with customer support to get a refund.

A flow would focus on the website or the application, and a specific task done through the website or the
application. An example could be launching the app for the first time with the goal of browsing a
marketplace, including any mandatory making of a user account. This flow would start with the splash
screen of the application, and follow the steps a user would take to finally get to the point of browsing the
marketplace.

Another point of difference is the time scale. A user journey may last for months or years, as a user
continues to interact with a product or service. A user flow, on the other hand, are usually expected to last
for minutes and have a limited set of interactions in relation to a specific task or goal.

Summary
User Flows: User flows provide a detailed, step-by-step depiction of how a user interacts with an
application or system to achieve a specific task. These diagrams help designers identify and address
usability issues, making it easier for users to complete their objectives with minimal friction. User flows
are particularly valuable for optimizing the efficiency of an interaction, streamlining the user's path, and
ensuring that the right information is presented at the right time.

User Journeys: User journeys offer a broader perspective by mapping the entire experience a user has
with a product or service. This includes all touchpoints and interactions, from initial awareness through
long-term engagement. By understanding user journeys, designers gain insights into the holistic user
experience, allowing them to create interfaces that align with user needs and preferences at every stage.
User journeys also highlight opportunities to engage and delight users beyond the core tasks.

This means that the methods used to create them are different.
For User Journeys the most applicable methods are those of contextual enquiry -- such as field studies,
diary studies, and ethnographic methods. These are often combined with contextual interviews to uncover
the real-world need and problems the users face.
For User Flows the most applicable methods are those of usability testing -- such as lab-based
observation and system instrumentation to count and time clicks through the interface.

Creating User Flows:

Identify User Tasks: Begin by defining the specific tasks or actions that users will perform within the
application or system. These can be mundane as well as more complex edge cases depending on the
overall goals of the exercises.
Map User Actions: Map out the steps involved in each task, This might include clicking on specific
buttons, entering information, or making choices at various points in the process.
Include Decision Points: Identify decision points within the user flow where the user must choose
between different options or take different paths.
Account for Error Handling: Include errors or obstacles that users might encounter during the task.
Showing the error handling where users recover from mistakes or issues can surface issues that are often
overlooked.
Visual Representation: Use flowcharts, diagrams, or wireframes to create a visual representation of the
user's path through the application.
Annotation: Add labels and icons to the visual representation of the flow to make sure that it is clearly
understandable by all the stakeholders that will be interacting with it – this may be developers, customers,
other designers, end users or a combination of them all.
Creating User Journeys:

Define Personas: Create user personas to represent different segments of your target audience, each with
their unique goals and needs. As shown from the journey examples below, the personas give a better
understanding of the motivations and choices the user makes through the journey.
Outline Scenarios: Develop scenarios or stories that describe a user's journey, from the initial contact
with the product or service to their long-term interaction with it.
Visualize Touchpoints: Map out all the touchpoints and interactions users have with the product or
service, including marketing, onboarding, usage, and support. This can take many different forms, from
flow charts to more complex info-graphic styles.
Fill out the details: Many user journeys include detailed annotations to support this vision of a user’s
interactions with the service. This can be quotes or results from qualitative research (such as interviews,
or ethnographic research on users' real-world experiences and challenges) or quantitative statistics of use
(for example, the number of users stopping an onboarding process at a particular screen, or the conversion
rate of items in a basket to sales).

THEME TWO: THE PLACE OF HCI RESEARCH IN SOCIETY

Paper:Carlos Guerrero Millan, Bettina Nissen, and Larissa Pschetz. 2024. Cosmovision Of Data:
An Indigenous Approach to Technologies for Self-Determination. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24). (Best Paper Award Winner).
Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 617, 1–13.