INFORMATION INTERACTIONS - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 3

C HAPTER 2

INFORMATION INTERACTIONS

Bridging Disciplines in the Creation
of New Technologies

A NDREW D ILLON

Abstract: Designing information tools that meet human and organizational requirements involves
skills, methods, and theories that are beyond the scope of one field. While the human-computer
interaction (HCI) community draws on several disciplines to advance the state of the art, key con-
cepts in the area remain undefined and the image of the user that drives various approaches is
often overly limited or unarticulated, rendering communication among researchers problematic
and education of future researchers and practitioners unfocused. However, rather than starting with
definition at the user or interface level, the concept of information is potentially the most impor-
tant one for us to agree upon. The present chapter presents a view of information as “product with
purposive process” that aims to offer a representation of information that can be shared across
MIS and HCI as both disciplines seek to inform interaction design.

Keywords: Information, Interdisciplinary Work, Design

INTRODUCTION

The design of digital information systems has been studied formally and informally for decades.
Throughout this time, the intellectual ownership of the process has never been settled. Certainly
Management Information Systems (MIS) has taken the issue as its core focus, but the same could
be said, with varying degrees of justification, of disciplines such as computer science, software
engineering, and information science, among others. It might plausibly be argued that as infor-
mation systems have become such a regular feature of contemporary working life, the need to
study their design within the broader context of meaning in people's lives ensures that no one field
can cover all the issues worthy of study here.
Human-computer interaction (HCI) is approaching, if it has not already arrived at, legitimacy as
a field of inquiry at least as delineated as MIS, if measured by such criteria as number of dedicated
journals, conferences, and professional societies. But where MIS research has tended to be located
largely within business school environments, HCI programs have sprung up in computer science,
psychology, information studies, or informatics departments (or some combination thereof). This
lack of agreed disciplinary location has both advantages and disadvantages, depending on one's
perspective, but it contributes to the impression that the field is novel or transitory, as opposed to
having the departmental status of other disciplines on campus.

21