Future of HCI Research in the UK

This website provides the focus for an ongoing discussion about the future of research in Human-Computer Interaction in the UK. This home page consists mainly of a (lightly annotated) index to a collection of documents associated with and supporting the discussion.

To date, three main events have been held to further the discussion:

• a one-day meeting in London on 17th April 2007
• a two-day workshop in Loughborough on 14-15th June 2007
• a panel at the HCI-07 conference at Lancaster on 3rd-7th September 2007.

Further details about all three are available below.

Acknowledgement to our sponsors

This discussion and the associated events are taking place with the support (direct or indirect) of the following organisations:

		The events, and this website, have been organised by staff from the UCL Interaction Centre.
		Funding for the events was provided by the Equator project, with particular thanks to Tom Rodden and Hazel Glover.
		The Equator project in turn was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, who also contributed to the Loughborough workshop.
		The London meeting was run with co-operation from the British HCI Group, as is this ongoing discussion.

Background to the discussion

This present discussion started in the context of the report of an International Review of ICT research in the UK, commissioned by the EPSRC and entitled International Perceptions of the UK Research Base in Information and Communications Technologies.

The topic of HCI barely figures in the report.

Among the inputs to the International Review had been a submission and a briefing document from the UK Computing Research Committee.

There is considerable talk about HCI in these documents, mainly in a somewhat self-congratulatory tone.

Responses to the International Review had been required early, and a response to the HCI element (such as it is) was sent by Russell Beale, chair of the British HCI Group, on behalf of the Group and more generally of the UK HCI community.

The low profile, or indeed near-invisibility, of HCI in the International Review was one of the factors prompting the present discussion. The organisers of the events believed (and still believe) that concerted actions are needed in order to:

• provide a boost to the international visibility and standing of UK HCI research;
• identify and develop a sense of community among UK HCI researchers;
• encourage respect between adherents of different methods, approaches, and traditions, leading to mutual support rather than destructive criticism during the funding process;
• ensure a continued supply of well trained, top quality PhD students and future researchers.

Meeting in London, April 2007

On 17th April 2007, a one-day meeting was held in London which 19 senior UK academic HCI researchers attended by invitation, along with a distinguished Dutch colleague. The aims of the meeting were to build on the International Review, to consider how to strengthen UK HCI research within an international context, and how to position HCI relative to the contributing disciplines (CS/ICT, Psychology, social sciences) in the context of a growing national enthusiasm for interdisciplinary research.

The following documents from the meeting are available:

• Programme

• List of participants

• Presentation by Gerrit van der Veer

  Entitled "Coping with Moore and more: HCI research in a moving world"

• Presentation by Russell Beale

  About the British HCI Group's response to the EPSRC International Review

• A discussion document on "quality in HCI" by Ann Blandford

  This document was developed from one of the working groups, and was later discussed at the Loughborough workshop.

• A short report on the meeting

  This report was prepared after the London meeting for presentation at the Loughborough workshop, see below.

Workshop in Loughborough, June 2007

Two months after the London meeting, on 14-15th June 2007, a two-day workshop was held in Loughborough at the Burleigh Court conference centre (a venue which we strongly recommend). The workshop was designed to involve both established researchers and also early career researchers in HCI (ECRs: lecturers and post-docs early in their research careers), and was intended to map out an agenda for the future of HCI research. The workshop focused on the future structure of HCI research in the UK, and the opportunities for ECRs to play their part in it.

The workshop included a mix of invited talks and breakout groups, and brought together a combination of ECRs and established researchers who spent two days working partly separately and partly together to identify and discuss key goals and directions, and likely challenges and opportunities, for UK HCI research. The outcome is being used to feed into a roadmap for further discussion among the research community, with specific consideration given to the role of ECRs and the development of their career paths.

The following documents from the meeting are available:

• Programme

• List of participants

• Short report by Richard Young on the London meeting

• Short report by Ann Light on the Leonardo project

• Presentation by Claire Hinchliffe on EPSRC future funding opportunities and priorities

• Presentation by William Newman on Engineering models in HCI

• Short final report by Chris Power from one of the working groups

Panel and tutorial at HCI-07, September 2007

As part of the HCI-07 conference at Lancaster on 3rd-7th September 2007, a panel was organised to discuss the topic of "Coherence, Community and Strategy in HCI". Its premise was that the HCI research community appears fragmented, with different approaches, values and assumptions. In that context, the panel was invited to consider: What are the markers of a healthy discipline, and how can we promote the health of HCI? Panel members were Ann Blandford (chair), David Benyon, Paul Cairns, Alistair Sutcliffe, and Harold Thimbleby.

The following documents from the meeting are available:

• Ann Blandford's introduction to the panel

• David Benyon's powerpoint presentation

• Alistair Sutcliffe's powerpoint presentation

• Harold Thimbleby's powerpoint presentation

In addition, elsewhere in the conference, Ann Blandford and Michael Harrison ran a tutorial session giving tips on getting research funding in HCI. The theme of their tutorial Snakes and ladders: Some rules of the funding game was that although research funding can be seen as something of a lottery, one's chances are improved by understanding the explicit and implicit rules of the game.

Plans for the future

Plans under discussion for the future include the possibility of regular meetings of the community, and also the construction of a "road map" for UK HCI research.

Further developments will be reported on this webpage. Watch this space!