Lansdown Centre

It’s Art, but is it HCI? – Testing the Boundaries

• Stephen Boyd Davis

Year : 2005

The paper begins by noting the ways in which the HCI community increasingly questions the scope of the discipline. A shift is described from a concern with functional efficiency to a broader interest in the overall user experience; this has brought greater prominence to affect, to engagement and pleasure. The paper discusses two issues arising. What evaluation methods and practices are now called for? And what should students learn about the ‘new HCI’?

The discussion is illustrated by cases of electronic arts which pose interesting problems for both evaluation and education. What happens when we take the works of digital interaction artists and approach them within an HCI frame of reference? At first sight, most of the approaches inherited from functional HCI seem inappropriate. Is the digital artwork then outside the scope of HCI? Problems are noted of trying to operate across the boundaries of two ‘cultures’, artistic and scientific, showing how concerns which are germane to one community may seem irrelevant to the other. The results of a small survey are reported which cast doubt on any simplistic view. The paper then offers steps towards the application of HCI thinking to these unusual domains. Suggestions are made of how this may alter the scope and methods of HCI in other, mainstream areas.

Location : Invited paper for workshop on HCI education, as part of HCI International 2005 Conference, Las Vegas, 22-27 July, 2005. Published on CD-ROM by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-5807-5.

RAE Nominated : No

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