HCI AS MIS - Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations - page 17

HCI Research
To date, HCI research has been credited with drawing attention to the importance and benefits of
well-designed interfaces. However, HCI has also been criticized for not grounding its research in
theory, not including contextual variables (i.e., variables beyond the person and the technology,
such as organizational characteristics), using small sample sizes, and including methods and
analysis techniques that are not always appropriate (Galletta et al., 2003; Gray and Salzman,
1998). For example, a review of an emerging area of HCI research, instant messaging (IM), noted
that many of the studies do not draw from a theoretical base, do not include representative sam-
ples (rather they draw on the developers' colleagues in their own organizations or investigate
teenagers or university students), are conducted by the developers of the systems themselves, and
are presented at conferences, rather than published in journals (Cameron and Webster, 2005).
Further, examining the home department of the IM articles' authors, we see that more than 80
percent are located either in technology-based industry research labs or in computer science.
To examine a more mature stream of HCI research, we also reviewed research on user disorien-
tation, a topic that has been studied at least since the days of hypertext (e.g., Conklin, 1987). This
topic was chosen because it has been referred to as one of the most important issues in hypertext
navigation (Otter and Johnson, 2000), and because navigation has been identified as the fourth
most frequently researched area by HCI practitioners (Singer et al., 2003). Furthermore, difficulty
in finding features is among the most frequently cited reason for user frustration (Ceaparu et al.,
2002). Within this older stream of research, we see more researchers outside of the computer sci-
ence area. However, many of the weaknesses described above were still demonstrated. For exam-
ple, most of the studies did not include contextual variables, did not provide strong theoretical
justifications, and studied university students. Consistent with Gray and Salzman's (1998) critique
of HCI experiments, we saw studies that could have been designed better: for example, some of the
studies that were called experiments were actually studies that included no comparison or control
groups (similar to “usability” studies). Furthermore, over half of the studies included sample sizes
of thirty or less and almost half presented simple analytic findings, such as frequencies and corre-
lations (see Table 3.1).
Both IM and disorientation research provide areas where MIS researchers can and do con-
tribute. For example, within the disorientation literature, the majority of business researchers
include much larger sample sizes and employ more rigorous methodologies. Furthermore, they are
positioned to be more aware of wider contextual variables and current business and market needs.
Therefore, we believe that MIS researchers in business schools have the unique capabilities to
provide not only business sensitivity, but also methodological and theoretical rigor.
HCI Teaching
To examine where HCI education currently resides, we collected information from the Web on
undergraduate HCI courses offered in the English language. 3 In order to be included here, the
terms of HCI, human computer interaction, human-computer interaction, computer-human inter-
action, human factors, and/or usability had to be listed in either the course title or, when available,
the course description. On occasion, only the program descriptions were included on the Web and
the courses associated with each program were not specifically listed. When this occurred, the
program levels were often described in detail. If the program level description included any of
these same terms, then it was included as an HCI course. Alternatively, if the program did not
provide a description of levels and/or a list of courses, it was not included in this summary.