Foreword

It is gratifying to see this book go into a second edition because of the endorsement
that implies for maturing the field of human–computer interaction beyond pure
empirical methods.
Human–computer interaction (HCI) as a topic is basically simple. There is a per-
son of some sort who wants to do some task like write an essay or pilot an airplane.
What makes the activity HCI is inserting a mediating computer. In principle, our
person could have done the task without the computer. She could have used a quill
pen and ink, for example, or flown an airplane that uses hydraulic tubes to work the
controls. These are not quite HCI. They do use intermediary tools or machines, and
the process of their design and the facts of their use bear resemblance to those of
HCI. In fact, they fit into HCI’s uncle discipline of human factors. But it is the com-
puter, and the process of contingent interaction the computer renders possible, that
makes HCI distinctive.
The computer can transform a task’s representation and needed skills. It can
change the linear writing process into something more like sculpturing, the writer
roughing out the whole, then adding or subtracting bits to refine the text. It can
change the piloting process into a kind of supervision, letting the computer with
inputs of speed, altitude, and location and outputs of throttle, flap, and rudder, do
the actual flying. And if instead of one person we have a small group or a mass
crowd, or if instead of a single computer we have a network of communicating
mobile or embedded computers, or if instead of a simple task we have impinging
cultural or coordination considerations, then we get the many variants of computer
mediation that form the broad spectrum of HCI.
The components of a discipline of HCI would also seem simple. There is an arti-
fact that must be engineered and implemented. There is the process of design for the
interaction itself and the objects, virtual or physical, with which to interact. Then
there are all the principles, abstractions, theories, facts, and phenomena surround-
ing HCI to know about. Let’s call the first interaction engineering (e.g., using Harel
statecharts to guide implementation), the second, interaction design (e.g., the design
of the workflow for a smartphone to record diet), and the third, perhaps a little
overly grandly, interaction science (e.g., the use of Fitts’ law to design button sizes
in an application). The hard bit for HCI is that fitting these three together is not easy.
Beside work in HCI itself, each has its own literature not friendly to outsiders. The
present book was written to bridge the gap between the relevant science that has
been built up from the psychological literature and HCI design problems where the
science could be of use.
Actually, the importance of linking engineering, design, and science together in
HCI goes deeper. HCI is a technology. As Brian Arthur in his book The Nature of

ix
x Foreword

Technology tells us, technologies largely derive from other technologies, not sci-
ence. The flat panel displays now common are a substitute for CRT devices of yore,
and these go back to modified radar screens on the Whirlwind computer. Further-
more, technologies are composed of parts that are themselves technologies. A laptop
computer has a display for output and a key and a touchpad for input and several
storage systems, and so on, each with its own technologies. But eventually all these
technologies ground out in some phenomenon of nature that is not a technology,
and here is a place where science plays a role. Some keyboard input devices use the
natural phenomenon of electrical capacitance to sense keystrokes. Pressing a key
brings two D-shaped pads close to a printed circuit board that is covered by an insu-
lating film, thereby changing the pattern of capacitance. That is to say, this keyboard
harnesses the natural phenomenon of capacitance in a reliable way that can be
exploited to provide the HCI function of signaling an intended interaction to the
computer.
Many natural phenomena are easy to understand and exploit by simple observa-
tion or modest tinkering. No science needed. But some, like capacitance, are much
less obvious, and then you really need science to understand them. In some cases,
the HCI system that is built generates its own phenomena, and you need science to
understand the unexpected, emergent properties of seemingly obvious things. Peo-
ple sometimes believe that because they can intuitively understand the easy cases
(e.g., with usability testing), they can understand all the cases. But this is not neces-
sarily true. The natural phenomena to be exploited in HCI range from abstractions
of computer science, such as the notion of the working set, to psychological theories
of human cognition, perception, and movement, such as the nature of vision. Psy-
chology, the area addressed by this book, is an area with an especially messy and at
times contradictory literature, but it is also especially rich in phenomena that can be
exploited for HCI technology.
I think it is underappreciated how important it is for the future development of
HCI as a discipline that the field develops a supporting science base as illustrated by
the current book for the field of psychology. It also involves HCI growing some of its
own science bits.
Why is this important? There are at least three reasons. First, having some sort of
theory enables explanatory evaluation. The use of A-B testing is limited if you don’t
know why there was a difference. On the other hand, if you have a theory that lets
you interpret the difference, then you can fix it. You will never understand the prob-
lems of why a windows-based user interface can take excessive time to use by doing
usability testing, for example, if you don’t have the theoretical concept of the win-
dow working set. Second, it enables generative design. It allows a shift in represen-
tation of the design space. Once it is realized that a very important property of
pointing devices is the bandwidth of the human motor group to which a transducer
is going to be applied, then the problem gets reformulated to terms of how to con-
nect those muscles and the consequence for the rest of the design. Third, it supports
the codification of knowledge. Only by having theories and abstractions can we
concisely cumulate our results and develop a field with sufficient power and depth.
 Foreword xi

Why isn’t there wider use of science or theory in HCI? There are obvious reasons,
like the fact that it isn’t easy to get the relevant science linkages or results in the first
place, that it’s hard to make the connection with science in almost any engineering
field, and that often the connection is made, but invisibly packaged, in a way that
nonspecialists never need to see it. The poet tosses capacitance with his finger, but
only knows he writes a poem. He thinks he writes with love, because someone
understood electricity.
But, mainly, I think there isn’t wider use of science or theory in HCI because it is
difficult to put that knowledge into a form that is easily useful at the time of design
need. Jeff Johnson in this book is careful to connect theory with design choice, and
to do it in a practical way. He has accumulated grounded design rules that reach
across the component parts of HCI, making it easier for designers as they design to
keep them in mind.

Stuart K. Card