The EU Conception of HCI as an Engineering discipline is a summary of the complete version (1.4 and 1.5).
The EU Conception of the HCI Engineering Discipline comprises: HCI Engineering Knowledge as Principles, which distinguish the interactive worksystem, of user and computer, the work it performs and the effectiveness of that performance in terms of task quality and system resource costs. These Principles support HCI Engineering Practices seeking to diagnose design problems and to prescribe design solutions to those problems. Design here is characterised as ‘specify then implement’ designs of users interacting with computers (the interactive worksystem) to perform effective work in some domain of application.
Key concepts, Footnotes and CitationsThe EU Conception of the HCI Engineering Discipline comprises (C2): HCI Engineering Knowledge as Principles (F1), which distinguish the interactive worksystem, of user and computer, the work it performs and the effectiveness of that performance in terms of task quality and system resource costs. (C3) These Principles support HCI Engineering Practices seeking to diagnose design problems and to prescribe design solutions to those problems. (F2) (C1) Design here is characterised as ‘specify then implement’ designs of users interacting with computers (the interactive worksystem) to perform effective work in some domain of application. (F3) (C4)
Key concepts are shown in bold on their first appearance only.
(F1) No such Principles exist in the current research and practice of HCI. The EU Conceptions are intended to form the basis, on which such Principles might be constructed in the longer term. In the meantime, EU research and practice recruits whatever HCI knowledge is available at present to solve design problems.
(F2) According to the EU Conception, design problems have to be diagnosed (and specified) before they can be solved (and implemented).
(F3) The current absence of HCI Design Principles, requiring the use of different types of HCI knowledge – see (F1) above – also requires, in the meantime, they support different types of practice, for example, ‘trial-and- error; ‘specify and implement’; ‘prototype and test’ etc.
Citations
Long and Dowell (1989)
(C1) ‘The (discipline) framework expresses the essential characteristics of the HCI discipline, and can be summarised as: ‘the use of HCI knowledge to support practices seeking solutions to the general problem of HCI’.’ (Page 9, Lines 16-19).
(C2) ‘Two prerequisites of a framework for conceptions of the HCI discipline are assumed. The first is a definition of disciplines appropriate for the expression of HCI. The second is a definition of the province of concern of the HCI discipline which, whilst broad enough to include all disparate aspects, enables the discipline’s boundaries to be identified.’ (Page 11, Lines 18-21).
(C4) ‘The discipline of engineering may characteristically solve its general problem (of design) by the specification of designs before their implementation. It is able to do so because of the prescriptive nature of its discipline knowledge supporting those practices – knowledge formulated as engineering principles.’ (Page 24, Lines 11-14)
Dowell and Long (1989)
(C3) ‘Taken together, the dimension of problem hardness, characterising general design problems, and the dimension of specification completeness, characterising discipline practices, constitute a classification space for design disciplines……..’ (Page 1518, Lines 20-22)