CHI 2019 Course: Anticipating the Future of HCI by Understanding Its Past and Present

This 80-minute course will be given at CHI 2019 in Glasgow, Scotland during the lunch break on Monday, May 6.
Register for the course and bring your lunch!

In this course we will cover the history of several HCI fields and discuss opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Software evolved from passively reacting to human input to today’s dynamic partnership. In some areas HCI advanced steadily, elsewhere it reached dead ends or seemed to go in circles. Understanding these patterns will prepare you to respond to unexpected developments in years to come. The rapid pace of change leaves some tools and technologies behind. We must focus our attention primarily on current developments. To make use of relevant information in other fields you must understand how their terminologies, priorities, and methods evolved.  The forces that shaped HCI in computer science, human factors, information systems, information science, and design are covered, with examples and implications for our new era.

The historical coverage follows the chapters of my 2017 book, listed below. The presentation is built on timelines and examples, avoiding bullet points.

Please send questions or suggestions for this course to jonathan@jonathangrudin.com.

You will register for the course as part of CHI 2019 registration.

FROM TOOL TO PARTNER: THE EVOLUTION OF
HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION

Jonathan Grudin, Morgan & Claypool, 2017

  1. Preamble: History in a Time of Rapid Change
  2. Human-Tool Interaction and Information
    Processing at the Dawn of Computing
  3. 1945–1955: Managing Vacuum Tubes
  4. 1955–1965: Transistors, New Vistas
  5. 1965–1980: HCI Prior to Personal Computing
  6. Hardware Generations
  7. 1980–1985: Discretionary Use Comes into Focus
  8. 1985–1995: Graphical User Interfaces Succeed
  9. 1995–2005: The Internet Era Arrives and Survives
    a Bubble
  10. 2005-2015: Scaling
  11. Reflection: Cultures and Bridges
  12. A New Era
  13. Conclusion: Ubiquitous HCI

Appendix: Personal Observations