Building OpenHCI
Identifying sub-fields and branches in HCI to feed into a network graph
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OpenHCI serves to be an open-source repository intending to capture what it means to study, research or contribute to the field of Human-Computer Interaction. At present, the growth in this field is immense and from varied parent subjects, but less often understood as a contribution to this field. With this platform, the aim is to provide a holistic understanding of the field, along with resources and references that may inspire more research and contribution to HCI.
HCI or Human-Computer Interaction is a field of research, that studies the design and use of computer technology, focused on the interfaces between people and computers. Researchers in the field of HCI observe the ways in which humans interact with computers and design technologies that let humans interact with computers in novel ways.¹
Given its focus on end-users, interfaces, technology, and the creation and use of novel tools, Human-Computer Interaction challenges and enhances human experiences in various contexts. This portrays a dynamic definition, emerging from all possible innovation within different and developing environments. A general definition to encompass the expanse of HCI on this platform would need more than just a group of people bringing in their idea of how it must be defined.
It may be wise to recognize that while Human-Computer Interaction at present is popular amongst Computer Science majors and Design Researchers, the development of the field is not restricted to just these fields and this novel term must be made familiar and accessible to anyone who enhances human experiences through research or creation. That being said, my approach to the same was to come up with a way in which this idea may be represented effectively.
OpenHCI platform aims to make HCI recognizable and accessible in a manner that a collaborative, spatial graph must be able to capture.
Approach
If you look upon the internet for fields related to HCI, there are over a hundred suggestions that pop suggesting how broad the field can get, and currently even is. Visually, interpreted as a little something like this.
But if you look closer, you would notice all suggested fields, directly or indirectly either focus more on the human(s) participating, computing technology, or interfaces with the advent of design and innovation linking them back to HCI research. The term HCI itself captures the essence of the same.
This was recognized as a first-filter to categorize the focus of suggested fields and how they link to the central node of the graph, HCI.
A selection of 90 related fields was then filtered within the headers of human systems, computed solutions, interaction, and design.
Each of the fields within the groups was then given a numerical value between 1–5 to define how strongly it relates to the parent groups. Example: Computer Science was given (Human: 2, Computer: 5, Interaction: 4 and Design: 3). Coming from one perspective, such numbering might not be accurate, but a cumulative of scores coming from a collaborative platform may be able to do it justice.
Taking such a map forward, we hope to build an open-repository with a network graph accessible to everyone to understand the length and breadth of what is inside HCI, and for experts to suggest and modify the connectedness of different topics within this field. And maybe even inspire and inform work in the field.
References:
[1]: “Human–Computer Interaction”. 2020. En.Wikipedia.Org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_interaction.