HCI & Multidisciplinary Research -opportunities & pitfalls Alistair Sutcliffe HCI Research Group Manchester Business School University of Manchester Coherence, Community and Strategy in HCI panel HCI 07 Lancaster

Multidisciplinary- Strengths HCI is the natural multidisciplinary science analytic, experimental as well as constructive design HCI community includes people with skills in psychology, sociology, art & design, computer science, engineering Success in IRCs- Inter Disciplinary Research Centres- notably Equator Critical mass – this conference in UK, CHI community world wide Strong industrial base- solving multi-faceted design problems

Weaknesses Community too diffuse, lacks focus Breadth but not depth, lack of intellectual rigour Poor theory, weak on generalisable knowledge, too much techno- invention (i.e. craft- remember Long & Dowell 1989, 1998 ?) Competing against specialist and entrenched disciplines No community lobby (BCS HCI group)

Opportunities Government research agenda oriented to multi-disciplinarity Many research areas require systems level multidiscipline solutions, e.g. e-science Academic agenda may become more flexible post RAE HCI community is reshaping disciplines in the Design/IT/CS area- especially in new Universities HCI should establish itself as a (mutli) discipline- but- - needs better core science in Interaction, Communication, and Socio Technical Systems

Threats We divide into competing camps- beware lessons from the Information Systems community We fail to establish a core science that is our own- Interaction, Socio Technical Systems ?- beware the lure of post modernism We don’t lobby effectively against entrenched positions- EPSRC, AHRC, ESRC colleges, government committees We don’t build street credibility with a core science to enable such lobbying

Carry Home Messages A broad church multi-discipline subject is sustainable, but it needs depth A mix of scientific enquiry is productive- contextual case studies, experiments, designing solutions, architecture Multidisciplinarity has competitive advantage but requires active community collaboration But beware of the tipping point between Science and the Humanities- post modernism is NOT Science