HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works That Have Influenced the HCI Community

Citation

Howard, W.R. (2009), "HCI Remixed: Reflections on Works That Have Influenced the HCI Community", Kybernetes, Vol. 38 No. 6, pp. 1034-1035. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920910973243

This is an unusual book, its title intriguing in that it suggests a “remix” of a now well established recipe for studying human‐computer interaction (HCI). Its subsidiary title is more explicit, it is a collection of opinions about the works that have influenced the community of HCI workers.

This is a community that has been in existence since computer users were able to use facilities that enabled then to interact with machines. Some cyberneticians and systemists may remember the beginnings of this field. Initially, the only way to access a computer was to provide the input devices with a set of holes in cards or tape or pressing buttons which enabled one to insert binary data directly into its store at the computer's console. Some HCI pioneers could well question the right of some contributors to air their new‐found opinions about a study that was slow in being accepted in a world of computer programmers and designers. That was in the 1960s and current developments are the result of some 50 years of endeavour. Even the terms “machine–interface” or “user‐interface” were scorned as serious research and development subjects at this time.

The editors of this book have selected writers who currently are active in this field to choose a study that they believe was an important contribution to the development of what is now called HCI. This must have been an invitation that most “HCI experts” would hardly relish. In many ways, the differing choices were a revelation in themselves and provide us with what is a current review of the field. There is no doubt that the modern approach to computer interfaces differs considerably from the early studies which attempted to study and understand the role of the user as a human being using a machine rather than simply developing hardware and software that provide facilities. Even so there was much of interest in the invited authors' contributions which covered an “extremely wide‐ranging study”. It also brings to our attention the need to direct HCI at the important aspects of the field and suggests areas that need investigation in depth.

Anyone with experience of HCI will want to read this book which after all, has provided a new and entirely different way of providing a stimulus to a subject that is very much in need of direction.