Abstract In this provocation, I propose relation artefact design (RAD) as a new approach to human-computer interaction (HCI). The aim is for HCI to stop designing artefacts that people love so much that they look at them all day and instead focus on designing artefacts that make people look at other people. The motivation is the failure of the promises of the disappearing computer and working through the computer made in the last 30 years. The theoretical analysis draws on the design of everyday things such as wedding rings, historical examples of socio-technical HCI designs, and the proposed RAD vocabulary from human work interaction design applied to train station design. The discussion distinguishes RAD from relatedness technologies and suggests future research to include studies of disengaging and less computer use.

Understanding and designing Cyber-physical systems (CPS) with humans in the loop (HITL) is a basic cross-scientific research problem with large implications for industry. The current software engineering knowledge already explains how to include the humans in the operation of the machines in terms of interfaces, architectures, adaptive systems, and design methodologies for including the Human-in-the-Loop. This paper extends existing knowledge with a systematic review of socio-technical perspectives on CPS with HITL. The review was software engineering focused, as it searched the body of research on CPS with HITL, and only within that body, those papers that included socio-technical perspectives. The results indicated four main areas in the ST literature. Validating these insights by expert interviews with industry CPS experts showed some alignment and also fundamental differences between the socio-technical literature (ST literature) insights and the industry experts’ viewpoints. The discussion identifies useful crossings between the ST literature and research into CPS with HITL adaption, and touch on the issues of non-alignments in industry practice. The conclusion is that the ST perspectives on the body of knowledge on CPS with HITL has much to offer researchers in terms of innovative ways to look at the HITL, but the literature needs further development before industry experts can effectively use it. Future research possibilities are outlined.

Abstract There are major geopolitical challenges for human-computer interaction (HCI): there may be little or no global HCI knowledge with a shared approach and identity; Western HCI theory and methods may not be adequate for regional or local models of education and practice; and the global organization of HCI research communities may be biased. This article explores geopolitical tensions in HCI research and practice fields. In particular, it offers an action-oriented framework to support systematic analysis and comparison of what HCI, as a field of knowledge and practice, is in different geopolitical contexts. We use activity theory combined with the knowledge mobilization framework to develop an actionable comparative analysis framework of geopolitical HCI challenges. The proposed framework is demonstrated by using it to analyse geopolitical HCI tensions in three case studies: the first one is focused on cultural and ideological issues surrounding the introduction of global HCI curricula in South Africa; the second one documents how local design practices in China are undermined by foreign narratives of the value of global HCI knowledge; and the third one offers an account of how global HCI could stimulate subversive local action in Colombia. The discussion takes up HCI tensions within and across countries, proposes a research agenda for geopolitical HCI research and presents theoretical contributions to activity theory and knowledge mobilization approaches. The conclusion answers research questions derived from the above challenges and summarizes how our framework and research agenda can be used to identify and assess geopolitical tensions in HCI ensuring diversity and pluralism in the field.

International audience

Abstract There is an emerging shift in human–computer interaction (HCI) research from things to events and towards time and temporality as a design material, which is made even more urgent by the unique time of the COVID-19 period. This paper pushes this shift forwards by investigating factors and the way that these shape online media multitasking behaviour over time during COVID-19. We model the factors along the WHAT and HOW dimensions of the HCI-over-Time model (HCIoT) with self-report data from 117 university students and objective behavioural data from 40 university students, who participated in an online course over 2 weeks during COVID-19. The results indicated a pervasiveness of media multitasking behaviour over time in an online course, driven by individual factors and enhanced by their mutual fit. Based on interpretation of our data, we suggest conceptualizing the COVID-19 period as the larger temporal environment in the HCIoT model. The discussion further explains how the broader idea of human–computer-environment fit is significant to understand HCIoT through an interaction lens. We discuss methodological issues related to differentiating between self-report and behavioural measures when applying the HCIoT model. The conclusion supports the feasibility and significance of conceptualizing media multitasking during COVID-19 as temporal HCI and of further developing and operationalizing the HCIoT model by using both behavioural and self-report measures.

We investigate professional greenhouse growers’ user experience (UX) when using climate-management systems in their daily work. We build on the literature on UX, in particular UX at work, and extend it to ordinary UX at work . In a 10-day diary study, we collected data with a general UX instrument (AttrakDiff), a domain-specific instrument, and interviews. We find that AttrakDiff is valid at work; its three-factor structure of pragmatic quality (PQ), hedonic identification quality, and hedonic stimulation quality is recognizable in the growers’ responses. In this article, UX at work is understood as interactions among technology, tasks, structure, and actors. Our data support the recent proposal for the ordinariness of UX at work. We find that during continued use, UX at work is middle-of-the-scale, remains largely constant over time, and varies little across use situations. For example, the largest slope of the four AttrakDiff constructs when regressed over the 10 days was as small as 0.04. The findings contrast existing assumptions and findings in UX research, which is mainly about extraordinary and positive experiences. In this way, the present study contributes to UX research by calling attention to the mundane, unremarkable, and ordinary UXs at work.

The usability movement has historically always sought to empower end-users of computers so that they understand what is happening and can control the outcome. In this article, we develop and evaluate a “Textual Feedback” tool for usability and user experience (UX) evaluation that can be used to empower well-educated but low-status users in UX evaluations in countries and contexts with high power distances. The proposed tool contributes to the Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) community’s pool of localized UX evaluation tools. We evaluate the tool with 40 users from two socio-economic groups in real-life UX usability evaluations settings in Malaysia. The results indicate that the Textual Feedback tool may help participants to give their thoughts in UX evaluation in high power distance contexts. In particular, the Textual Feedback tool helps high status females and low status males express more UX problems than they can with traditional concurrent think aloud (CTA) alone. We found that classic concurrent think aloud UX evaluation works fine in high power contexts, but only with the addition of Textual Feedback to mitigate the effects of socio-economic status in certain user groups. We suggest that future research on UX evaluation look more into how to empower certain user groups, such as low status female users, in UX evaluations done in high power distance contexts.

This paper reports a study of the use of activity theory in human–computer interaction (HCI) research. We analyse activity theory in HCI since its first appearance about 25 years ago. Through an analysis and meta-synthesis of 109 selected HCI activity theory papers, we created a taxonomy of 5 different ways of using activity theory: (1) analysing unique features, principles, and problematic aspects of the theory; (2) identifying domain-specific requirements for new theoretical tools; (3) developing new conceptual accounts of issues in the field of HCI; (4) guiding and supporting empirical analyses of HCI phenomena; and (5) providing new design illustrations, claims, and guidelines. We conclude that HCI researchers are not only users of imported theory, but also theory-makers who adapt and develop theory for different purposes.

The mission of the International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction (IJHCI) special issue on reframing human–computer interaction (HCI) through local and indigenous perspectives is to further ou...

In this article, a country specific comparative mobile usability study is presented, using Iran and Turkey as the two chosen emerging/emergent nation exemplars of smartphone usage and adoption. In a focus group study, three mobile applications were selected by first-time users of smartphones. In both countries, the music player application was tested, wherein common patterns of accessing and sorting songs emerged. Whereas the Iranian users appeared to be more interested in social networking via use of an SMS service, the Turkish users tended to prefer to apply hierarchies to their own daily personal contacts. The results and analysis establish the existence of country specific issues and concerns, as well as reveal generic usability issues. The article concludes that the source of these issues is most likely due to a combination of certain contextual features endemic to both Iran and Turkey, not only to ethnic, religious, or cultural issues.

As the number of website users in Asia grows, there is an increasing need to gain an overview of human–computer interaction (HCI) research about users and websites in that context. This article presents an overview of HCI research on website usability in Asia “from within,” which outlines the articles written by researchers with affiliations to universities in that part of the world. Based on a key word approach to major HCI research outlets, 60 articles from 2001 to 2011 were identified and analyzed. Results indicate that academic websites, e-commerce websites, and tourism websites were the most studied website domains in Asia. Typically, university graduates were used as participants in a laboratory setup and asked to navigate and find information on a website. No systematic use of cultural variables or theories to code, analyze, and interpret data and findings was found. The article discusses the results and the need for a greater sensitivity to what is “local” and “from within” in HCI research and what this can add to the existing literature on website usability.

The cultural diversity of users of technology challenges our methods for usability testing. This article suggests templates for cross-culturally and culturally specific usability testing, based on studies of usability testing in companies in Mumbai, Beijing, and Copenhagen. Study 1 was a cross-cultural field study of think-aloud testing done by usability vendor companies in the three countries. The result was a grounded theory of cultural variations in the production of a usability problem list. Study 2 was a follow-up, ethnographic interview study of how the companies typically perform usability tests. The result was the construction of templates for usability testing. The culturally specific templates were in Mumbai “user-centered evaluation,” Copenhagen “client-centered evaluation,” and Beijing “evaluator-centered evaluation.” The findings are compared with related research, and the implications are pointed out. The templates can be seen as a simple and practical way to plan, compare, and improve the way usability testing is carried out in multiple, different cultures and countries.

Whereas the concept of usability is predominantly defined analytically, people relate to systems through personal usability constructs. Based on 48 repertory-grid interviews, this study investigates how such personal constructs are affected by two factors crucial to the international development and uptake of systems: nationality (Chinese, Danish, or Indian) and stakeholder group (developer or user). We find no significant overall difference across nationalities, but further analyses suggest that conventional usability aspects such as ease of use and simplicity are prominent for Chinese and Danish but not Indian participants and that a distinction between work and leisure-related communication is central to Chinese and Indian but not Danish participants. For stakeholder groups, we find a significant overall difference between developers and users. Unlike developers, users associate ease of use with leisure and, conversely, difficulty in use with work-relatedness. Further, users perceive usefulness as related to frustration and separate from ease of use, whereas developers construe usefulness, fun, and ease of use as related. In construing usability, participants make use of several constructs that are not part of prevailing usability definitions, including usefulness, fun, and security.

Most research assumes that usability is understood similarly by users in different cultures, implying that the notion of usability, its aspects, and their interrelations are constant across cultures. The present study shows that this is not the case for a sample of 412 users from China and Denmark, who differ in how they understand and prioritize different aspects of usability. Chinese users appear to be more concerned with visual appearance, satisfaction, and fun than Danish users; Danish users prioritize effectiveness, efficiency, and lack of frustration higher than Chinese users. The results suggest that culture influences perceptions of usability. We discuss implications for usability research and for usability practice.

We discuss the impact of cultural differences on usability evaluations that are based on the thinking-aloud method (TA). The term ‘cultural differences’ helps distinguish differences in the perception and thinking of Westerners (people from Western Europe and US citizens with European origins) and Easterners (people from China and the countries heavily influenced by its culture). We illustrate the impact of cultural cognition on four central elements of TA: (1) instructions and tasks, (2) the user’s verbalizations, (3) the evaluator’s reading of the user, and (4) the overall relationship between user and evaluator. In conclusion, we point to the importance of matching the task presentation to users’ cultural background, the different effects of thinking aloud on task performance between Easterners and Westerners, the differences in nonverbal behaviour that affect usability problem detection, and, finally, the complexity of the overall relationship between a user and an evaluator with different cultural backgrounds.

In this paper, four types of experienced HCI Professionals are interviewed about their different ways of describing users. By use of the qualitative research interview technique of thematizing the dialogue as explicit, implicit and constructive conversations about users, these differences are explored. The research shows that the traditional usability engineering approach to user description produce person descriptions that are filled with idiosyncratic information about the individual in the particular test situation. Less traditional approaches to user modelling give other kinds of schematic user typification in terms of the users' roles, users' social events or users' self-concepts. Despite the obvious fallacies in these approaches, typification of users appears unproblematic for the experienced HCI professional, because in practice user types are rich conceptual structures that support professional user modelling. Accordingly, we suggest that it might not be that important to discuss why user types exist, but rather to study their application and change and under which conditions they become user stereotypes, and how we may counteract the negative effects of user stereotypes on design.