Systems, interactions, and macrotheory

Philip Barnard, Jon May, David Duke, David Duce
2000 ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction  
S y s t e m s , I n t e r a c t i o n s a n d M a c r o t h e o r y A significant proportion of early HCI research was guided by one very clear vision: that the existing theory base in psychology and cognitive science could be developed to yield engineering tools for use in the inter-disciplinary context of HCI design. While interface technologies and heuristic methods for behavioral evaluation have rapidly advanced in both capability and breadth of application, progress towards deeper theory
more » ... s been modest. A case is presented for developing new forms of theory based around generic 'systems of interactors'. An overlapping, layered structure of macro-and microtheories could then serve not only their traditional explanatory and predictive roles, but also to bind together contributions from the different disciplines. It is also argued that novel routes to formalizing and applying such theories provide a host, not only of interesting, but also tractable problems for future basic research in HCI.
doi:10.1145/353485.353490 fatcat:z7tpxfj6zfaxjevq77vthps7ja