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Creating Greater Synergy Between HCI Academia
and Practice
Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah
1(✉)
, Dennis Galletta
2
, Melinda Knight
3
, James R. Lewis
4
,
John Pruitt
5
, Gavriel Salvendy
6,7
, Hong Sheng
1
, and Anna Wichansky
8
1Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO, USA
{nahf,hsheng}@mst.edu
2University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
galletta@katz.pitt.edu
3Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA
melinda.knight@microsoft.com
4IBM, Boca Raton, FL, USA
jimlewis@us.ibm.com
5Dell Corporation, Round Rock, TX, USA
john_pruitt@dell.com
6Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
salvendy@purdue.edu
7Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
8Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores, CA, USA
anna.wichansky@oracle.com
Abstract. This paper presents perspectives from both academia and practice on
how both groups can collaborate and work together to create synergy in the
development and advancement of human-computer interaction (HCI). Issues and
challenges are highlight ed, success cases are offered as examples, and suggestio ns
are provided to further such collaborations.
Keywords: Human-computer interaction · Synergy · Academia · Practice ·
Research · Industry
1 Introduction
According to Wikipedia, human-computer interaction (HCI) focuses on the design and
use of computer technology. For a technology to be successful and be embraced by its
users, the sociotechnical factors, which include not only the technology but also the
users and their environments, must be taken into consideration. Hence, the field of HCI
crosses many disciplines including information systems/science, computer science,
psychology, sociology, organization science, communication, business administration,
engineering, and ergonomics [1–3].
Academia and practice have long been concerned about the gap that exists between
them [4–7]. In the context of this paper, we are focusing specifically on the field of HCI.
Questions and issues that have arisen include: Are students today meeting the needs of
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
F.F.-H. Nah and C.-H. Tan (Eds.): HCIB 2015, LNCS 9191, pp. 727–738, 2015.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-20895-4_68
the HCI and User Experience (UX) industry? Is academic research in HCI applicable
and useful to HCI practice? Can HCI academia and practice work together to establish
greater synergy in their profession and discipline, and if so, how?
2 Perspectives from HCI Academia
Four HCI academicians offer their perspectives on how the gap between academia and
practice can be bridged and their suggestions on creating synergy between HCI academia
and practice. They are: Dennis Galletta from University of Pittsburgh, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah
from Missouri University of Science and Technology, Gavriel Salvendy from Purdue
University, and Hong Sheng from Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Perspective from Dennis Galletta (University of Pittsburgh). I believe that practice
and the academy have synergies that provide great opportunities for interaction.
Innovations that are widely communicated have the best chance of further improve‐
ment over time, and eventually becoming mainstream. If innovations remain in academic
journals, they merely remain as untested ideas or platforms for understanding the inno‐
vations. On the other hand, innovations that stay in an organization remain as proprietary
technologies, and users are then forced to do painstaking research to discover which prod‐
ucts have the best combination of unique and immature innovations. Innovations that are
found through research (whether from the academy or from the corporate lab) and widely
communicated and/or evaluated through academic journals and conferences will be on a
quicker cycle to lead to further innovations that can be enjoyed by all.
In earlier days of our field, 30+ years back, research teams such as [8, 9] were
pioneers of this interaction. Three examples from these two research teams should be
helpful. I have chosen older examples because the world has had time to realize their
value and extend their impact.
Gould and Lewis [8] provided a framework of three simple principles to design
usable systems (through early focus on the users and task, testing, and iteration). Their
survey revealed that surprisingly, very few designers describing their practices
mentioned any of those principles. This disparity, and the simplicity of the framework,
was appealing to researchers; as of this writing, Google Scholar reports 1,630 citations.
Two years later, Gould et al. [10] reported how they applied their framework to a
successful design of the Olympic Message System in 1984, attributing much of their
success to those principles. In the following years, several practitioners set up usability
labs. Some even have made available tools to support user testing and make it affordable.
Examples of on-line tools in this area are Usertesting.com and Openhallway.com. Today
we know much more about the sample size that is needed for testing, e.g., Hwang and
Salvendy [11] has come up with the “10 ± 2 rule” indicating that designers should test
with at least 8 to 12 subjects.
Card, Moran, and Newell [9] reported a hierarchy of models of expert user
performance, which included the keystroke model. The first two authors were prac‐
titioner-researchers from Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, and the third was an
academic from Carnegie Mellon University. They pooled their resources to create a
set of parameters and techniques for modeling error-free user behavior, which could
728 F.F.-H. Nah et al.
predict the time it would take for highly experienced users to accomplish tasks using
quantitative techniques rather than testing them in actual use. To date, not only have
there been over 6,500 citations of that work, but in the 1980s, many devices and
software packages were evaluated using that framework.
1
There were two influential applications of the keystroke model. The first, “Project
Ernestine,” [13] saved NYNEX $2 million by avoiding the purchase of a “modern” GUI-
based system; the keystroke model revealed an excessive amount of sequential opera‐
tions for which operators had to wait, as compared to the faster but cruder-looking legacy
system’s parallel operations which could be performed while operators were doing other
things. The second was IBM’s “In-keyboard pointing stick,” now known as the Track‐
point©, included on Lenovo’s Thinkpad© line, as well as on many higher-end Dell,
Toshiba, and HP laptops. Ted Selker of MIT’s Media Lab, designed this red “eraser
head,” as some call it, a pointing device placed between the G, H, and B keys. Selker
[14] found it to be 20 % faster in mixed keyboard and pointing tasks because users no
longer needed 2 s to reposition the hands from the keyboard to a separate mouse and
back. The efficacy of the pointing device was supported by the keystroke model as well
as by performance of actual subjects, as depicted in a video by Rutledge and Selker [15].
The final example is again from Card, Moran, and Newell [9] in the foundational
work that led to the development of the Xerox Star© workstation and the world’s first
graphical user interface (GUI) operating system. Many of its features led to the design
of the first MacIntosh© and Windows© operating systems. Researchers at Xerox needed
to painstakingly evaluate many alternative designs [16]. Tuck [17] reported that Apple
refined the designs of their GUI by working with “psychologists, artists, teachers, and
ordinary users.” Tuck reports that they even used children in a California elementary
school because kids “gave the truest reaction to basic interface issues.” The innovations
provided by the Xerox Star project were widely publicized in journals and conferences.
This applied research resulted in innovations such as the mouse, Ethernet, Microsoft
Word (a descendent of BravoX), laser printing, and other vital innovations that are still
offered today, sometimes as hidden components of more well-known products (see [18]).
These examples demonstrate the synergy of practice and academia, suggesting a
cycle of (1) innovations enjoyed by a firm, (2) widespread sharing of the innovation’s
concepts in academic literature, and then (3) further innovations derived from the
academic concepts. Industry has benefited, demonstrated by the success of Apple’s and
Microsoft’s operating systems, Ethernet and laser printing, the persistence of the Track‐
point©, and the savings enjoyed by NYNEX. The academy has also benefited our
understanding of computer uses in new ways as we can now abstract across the successes
and failures to extract general meaning and frameworks, and provide new building
blocks for further research. Academics can study practice, widely communicate its
innovations, and provide unique understanding across many products, companies, or
applications. Practitioners who refer to analysis from the academy can integrate old and
1As an aside, one of my recent publications used the keystroke model and novice testing to
demonstrate a vivid difference between ease of use and ease of learning. Comparing the
four major smartphone platforms in terms of ease of use, Blackberry was first and iPhone
was last. Comparing them on ease of learning, the order reversed [12].
Creating Greater Synergy Between HCI Academia and Practice 729
new ideas and enhance the academy’s work. An iterative cycle of this process can be
considered as synergistic because the combination is more powerful than the sum of the
two sides.
Perspective from Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah and Hong Sheng (Missouri University of
Science and Technology). Being immersed and teaching in a department that integrates
business and information science & technology, the field of HCI takes on high prece‐
dence in our curriculum and research agenda. As a STEM-oriented university where
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, the Missouri
University of Science and Technology places a strong focus on entrepreneurship to
commercialize and roll out into practice the technological innovations and inventions
that take place on campus. Hence, bridging research and practice is one important goal
and a key success factor of the campus. However, collaborations with industry are still
lacking and questions arise as to how we can better train and prepare our students for
practice in the HCI/UX area.
From the perspective of providing better and more relevant HCI/UX training to our
students, we find that internships, co-ops, and collaborations with industry on research
projects offer valuable training and experiences to our students. With regard to collabora‐
tions with industry in the HCI/UX area, integrating such collaborations into classes is a
powerful and effective way to bring practice-relevant training to students. Having HCI/UX
practitioners as guest speakers in classes and serving on the advisory board of major
programs can help to foster synergistic effects in bridging practice into academia. Having
joint regional and international conferences/workshops/seminars involving academics,
students, and practitioners is also desirable for creating and enhancing such synergy.
From the perspective of collaborating on HCI/UX research, there are mutual benefits
for both parties to work together. As mentioned earlier, such research collaborations
offer greater opportunities for students to work on practice-oriented research projects
and apply what they have learned in the classroom to practice. It may also offer
academics the opportunity to publish rigorous and practice-oriented research, all in one.
Practitioners can benefit from the rigor of scientific research, from relatively inexpensive
(or less expensive) labor from students to work on their projects, and from using the
university environment to test and assess the HCI/UX aspects of their products and
services (e.g., as a beta site).
Despite the many advantages and benefits, there are challenges that will need to be
addressed, some of which include intellectual property rights and the somewhat different
priorities and performance evaluation criteria of practitioners and academics. Having a
mutual understanding of each party’s goals and priorities, and striving for a mutual goal
that is beneficial to both parties are keys to the success of collaborations.
Perspective from Gavriel Salvendy (Purdue University and Tsinghua University).
Both industry and academia got their thrust and evaluation messed up. In industry, typi‐
cally over 90 % of R&D function is allocated to short term developmental objectives
that can germinate revenue for the corporation in the short term. Long term basic research
which may have major impact on new products and services is typically downplayed or
missing in the current industry objectives. In all or most university programs with the
730 F.F.-H. Nah et al.
exception of business schools, the top priority is for faculty to bring in lots of research
funding. For research output, less research oriented universities simply count the number
of papers the faculty authored. The more research intensive universities look at the
impact of the journal where a paper is published and the citation of the faculty but there
is no emphasis on the impact of the research for societal needs. Based on the above
observations, collaborations between industry and academia on basic research are
warranted in order to design and produce far reaching high impact innovative products
and services for the benefit of mankind. One way of springboarding such collaborations
is by having industry sponsor a one full day meeting during a conference, such as HCII,
that is attended by individuals from industry and academia in order to generate a white
paper on the subject of interest to industry that would provide a road map for high impact
international research.
3 Perspectives from HCI Practice
Four HCI practitioners who have received rigorous research training in their doctoral
education offer their perspectives on how to address the gap between academia and
practice and provide their suggestions on creating synergy between them. The HCI
practitioners are: Melinda Knight from Microsoft, James Lewis from IBM, John Pruitt
from Dell, and Anna Wichansky from Oracle.
Perspective from Melinda Knight (Microsoft). As the lead of a small team within a large
organization, I have two primary objectives: finding and maintaining an outstanding team
of world-class researchers, and ensuring that my team and I are providing the most action‐
able insights possible, activated towards current and future product opportunities in a
timely way. We work in a format that roughly mirrors the scientific method: pose a
research question, understand existing insights, form a hypothesis, determine the appro‐
priate method for the investigation of the research question (if that question has not already
been answered by the broader HCI or Microsoft community), execute new research or
interpret the existing research, frame up the set of insights derived from the investigation
… and then activate it to produce real product change.
Activation — the translation of a finding, evidence, speculation, or certainty into a
tangible, positive outcome for a customer — is the measure of success for us. Simply
put, activation means getting insights into a product, and it includes much more than
conducting and communicating research. While academia’s culture is one of “publish
or perish,” for HCI practitioners in industry, the notion is “ship or sink.” First, we must
start from a research question that will have impact on the products our industry is
shipping. We must manage time, budget, and scope of our research question to align
with the product schedule in order to ensure that activation is even possible. Yes, our
insights must be well-formed, our research plan sound, and our methods appropriate to
the level of confidence needed to inform the decision. And yes, we strongly agree that
documenting those insights is critical so that others who come after us can jump to the
next activation point faster (or deactivate and redirect, as is sometimes the case). But
our goal, and the measure of any body of research’s true success — and our success as
HCI practitioners — is activation.
Creating Greater Synergy Between HCI Academia and Practice 731
This is a key point on which industry and academia, and by association, HCI educa‐
tion and training, differ. Conducting outstanding research is not a complete or sufficient
outcome, but a step along a journey towards another goal. For my team, that journey
also includes project management, leadership across interdisciplinary teams, and under‐
standing how to interpret research results and recommendations in the context of a
project timeline, technical constraints, market forces, and myriad other factors. Those
are the skills I look for when I interview HCI grads and professionals. It is not the tools
in their tool belt, or the number of citations they have produced. Knowledge of tools and
number of citations indicate research potential, and are an important foundation for a
great industry researcher. Strong qualitative and quantitative skills, mastery of statistical
methods, and a background in experimental design are all valued as they are the foun‐
dation. The next layer up, however, is critical. I need colleagues with the ability to
partner, frame, storytell, and prioritize a research insight to move a product forward.
Across industry and academia, insight is our common currency. As HCI practi‐
tioners, we share a goal to develop greater understanding of human needs, habits, beliefs
and capabilities, and examine how new or existing technologies might best support and
enhance these across diverse contexts. Ideally, industry would pause following the
launch of a product to exhale those insights that led to (or away from) the customer
outcomes embodied in a product solution. That broader sharing remains a challenge for
us in many respects. Some revelations are becoming more common, as product teams
put forth design language and human interface guidelines for developers of new tech‐
nologies; however, the specific research findings that led to a piece of advice are not
always revealed. I would ask academics to help your industry peers move further and
faster by framing your research findings in ways that are actionable and accessible. Seek
out and value the application of those findings as a measure of their success. Note product
adoption in line with your peer-reviewed articles and publications, or consider it the
ultimate citation. Doing so would increase the effective power of your work and afford
experimentation and evaluation of your insight at scale.
Two practical barriers we have encountered to partnering with academia include
IP and a focus on research funding. Greater partnerships could be facilitated by
avoiding competition for IP on joint work, and leading with how existing and future
insights could be activated in industry products and timelines vs. leading with the
question of “What’s in it for the university?” Where there is an opportunity for acti‐
vation, money follows. Finally, I would implore us all to prepare the next round of
HCI practitioners, be they targeting academia or industry, with those skills in project
management, team management, and persuasive fortitude which will make them
valued and valuable wherever they land.
Perspective from James Lewis (IBM). Given a goal of creating greater synergy
between HCI academia and industrial practitioners, one question is, “What are the
opportunities for synergy?” I joined IBM in 1981 as a human factors engineer with a
master’s degree in Human Factors Engineering from New Mexico State University.
I haven’t conducted research on this topic, but reflecting back on my personal history,
here are some of the opportunities I’ve observed.
732 F.F.-H. Nah et al.
Internships. Internships bring students (and in similar but rarer programs, faculty) from
academia and give them industrial experience – i.e., experience that can shape their
future research activities as academicians in a way that also benefits industrial practice.
Before I joined IBM as a regular employee, I interned in the summer of 1980, and that
experience helped me decide to pursue industrial rather than academic work. Over the
following decades, the Human Factors department in Boca Raton often had several
interns (including John Pruitt, also on this panel) working side-by-side with seasoned
professionals. Interns can be very influential on industrial practices in a given department
given their up-to-date knowledge of applicable research and new analytical methods.
Both academia and industry benefit from a robust internship program.
Doctoral Committees. I have twice had the opportunity to participate on the doctoral
committees of interns with whom I have worked, one from the University of Central
Florida and the other from the University of Miami. Both interns conducted research
that had strong industrial value while also accomplishing the research goals required for
their doctorates [19, 20].
Practical Courses. Some HFE and HCI professors teach practical courses in which they
reach out to industrial practitioners to present design or research problems to the class.
The students then, typically in teams, apply the design and research methods they’ve
been learning to the problem. To complete the project they present their work to the
practitioner.
Scientific Advisory Boards. Recipients of grant money often need to put together scien‐
tific advisory boards as part of their research process. When possible, board membership
should be offered to qualified industrial practitioners. In addition to the collaboration
via the board, there may also be opportunities for joint research or publication. Recently,
I worked with one of the academic members of the Center for Research and Education
on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) on a paper for the Journal of
Usability Studies [21].
Professional Societies/Meetings. Membership in professional societies and participation
in professional meetings can bring academic researchers and industrial practitioners
together (e.g., this panel). Connections made through these activities sometimes result
in collaboration. An inhibitor for industrial practitioners is a common lack of financial
support for membership and attendance.
Publication. Participation in the publication process can bring academia and industry
together. For this to happen there must be venues that are open to contribution by indus‐
trial practitioners and industrial practitioners need to be able to (1) recognize which
aspects of their work are publishable and (2) work for companies that encourage (or at
least don’t actively discourage) publication. Ideally, journals in applied areas such as
HCI should make an effort to include industrial practitioners on their editorial boards
and as reviewers.
Creating Greater Synergy Between HCI Academia and Practice 733
Continuing Education. Industrial practitioners can hone skills and connect with
academic researchers through continuing education. These opportunities may take the
form of short courses such as those offered by the University of Michigan or through
tuition reimbursement benefits. For example, IBM essentially paid for my PhD in
psycholinguistics, which I then applied for a number of years to help commercialize
IBM’s speech technologies.
Conclusion. There are a number of opportunities for synergy between HCI academia
and practice, which requires investment from both sides. Academia should focus on
increased outreach to practitioners, identifying good candidates for participation on
committees and boards, providing opportunities for “reverse internships” (bringing
qualified practitioners on campus or over the Web to teach a class/course or participate
in a research activity), and creating venues for applied publication and presentation.
Excellent examples of publication opportunities have been fostered by Gavriel
Salvendy, who founded the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction and
the HCII conferences. Industry should create work environments that, while still
supporting the goals of the company, provide incentives to practitioners to participate
in the broader HCI community (e.g., reimbursing the membership fee for a professional
society as a benefit, paying for conference attendance contingent on conference partic‐
ipation, awarding external publication, and seeking academic partners for R&D
projects).
Perspective from John Pruitt (Dell). As we consider the question of how to improve
the synergy between HCI academia and industrial practice, the first logical response is
WHY? To what end do we desire to have better synergy? What is the requisite outcome
for either party? For me, that question leads to the discussion of motivation and incentive.
What truly motivates an individual practitioner, professor, student, department, team,
or broader institution to devote time, energy, people and finances to collaborate across
party lines? I posit that our motivations can be quite different and that acknowledging
them upfront can lead to better collaboration, transparent negotiations, and win-win
situations.
Let’s consider first a corporate setting. What matters to almost any corporation is the
bottom line. Is there a business case, product or process improvement, protectable and
monetize-able intellectual property? For the practitioner in a corporate setting, practical
innovation that can be productized and owned may be the primary outcome. In such a
case, the specific institution (are they top 10 or lesser known) or individual (published
and tenured or just establishing themselves) may matter less as long as they are an expert
on the right topics, open to targeted collaborations toward a specific end, and willing to
turn over ownership of the outcome to the sponsoring corporation. When considering
longer term (promotions and careers), the skills and accomplishments gained in climbing
the corporate ladder typically does not make an individual attractive to an academic
institution and vice versa.
My own experience is that academic partnerships for HCI in usability and design
related research often offers a less costly alternative to consulting agencies when needing
to extend my team’s capabilities and available resources. The relations are often less
734 F.F.-H. Nah et al.
formal, more friendly and open. The difficulty typically lies in the fact that business
timelines are typically condensed while project goals as well as product requirements
can shift suddenly as organizational, industry and competitive changes occur. Agencies
can turn on a dime, academic collaborations usually can’t or don’t. Further, project
outcomes for the corporation need to be conclusive, actionable and perhaps show a
visible return on investment. Academic collaborations can sometimes be satisfied with
simply knowing the previously unknown and creating a call for further research.
The research (and gained understanding) is the end, not necessarily a means to an end.
For higher level research endeavors (understanding process, the larger system, a partic‐
ular domain, uncovering innovative ideas), doing so may be fine. For more tactical or
product specific work, it likely isn’t. Finally, the research topic and findings for a busi‐
ness are largely held as private and protected. Publishing and conference participation
is not typically encouraged in many organizations, or at least not explicitly supported.
Patent protection, on the other hand, typically is encouraged and even financially
incented for the practitioner.
As I consider the academic perspective, what matters might be the reputation of the
target corporation, its ability to fund the collaboration, or the possibility of publishing
the work (as opposed to being more secretive and protective). For the professor or
research associate, will it further their line of investigation, improve their understanding
of the domain, give access to certain valuable resources, or lead to further discovery?
For the advisor or the student, will it give the student a better opportunity for employ ment
later – real-world experience, connections, a fuller resume or portfolio? Again, for the
corporation, not only is the intern’s direct work important, but such a relationship allows
for a long-term evaluation of a potential employee – a 3-month interview with benefits.
Of course, there is no single perspective or motivation that covers any institution or
individual, in academia or industry. Motivations likely overlap some or even reverse in
certain situations. They are complex and vary over time. I will also note that the specific
motivational examples here revolve around my own primitive notions of traditional
academic institutions to traditional businesses. There are many complexities and varia‐
tions that could be called out in brilliant detail. On the academic side, there is likely a
strong division between top tier universities focused on basic research and others that
range from more applied research to mostly focused on education and training. On the
business side, HCI and UX concerns (and the professionals who do this work) are no
longer concentrated in tech companies. Banking, automotive, fashion, health care – you
name the industry, and there are likely UX professionals working on interesting prob‐
lems. The business objectives, processes and working environments must be all over
the map. Still, the point here is that understanding motivations and being open about
them may encourage new avenues of collaboration, or at least, more productive, mutu‐
ally beneficial partnerships – a truly concerted effort. It is typically the case that moti‐
vations and deliverables are different between parties, but both sets of needs must be
met in order for great collaborations to happen.
As James Lewis and others have pointed out, there exist today several good avenues
of collaboration between these worlds – joint or one-party funded projects (corporate
sponsorship), advisory boards, committees and standards bodies, sabbatical appoint‐
ments, student internships, visiting/guest instructor/lecturer, targeted conferences, etc.
Creating Greater Synergy Between HCI Academia and Practice 735
But, are these the only ones, the rights ones, or are there other, perhaps yet discovered
alternatives? Perhaps joint goals, motivators and incentives can be created? Imagine a
joint business endeavor or product line between a business and university, or the creation
of a “corporate” university/campus or research institute. Imagine there being time-
shared employees who spend part of their time in academic settings and part in corporate;
students who move seamlessly between the two. The nature of education and business
may need to evolve for greater HCI collaboration to happen.
Perspective from Anna Wichansky (Oracle). After receiving my Ph.D. in experi‐
mental psychology with concentration in human factors engineering, I felt I was not
experienced enough in this very applied field to teach others; therefore, I embarked on
an industry career which led to several jobs in high tech. I reasoned that after a long stint
in industry (maybe up to 10 years!), I would have enough hands-on knowledge and
practical skills to help guide young professionals in an academic setting. Now, after
almost triple that time, I feel I might be able to articulate some of the attributes I wish
for in a job candidate, particularly a fresh-out master’s or doctoral grad who is anxious
to get into high tech.
I will concentrate on two areas where I see regrettable lack of skills and knowledge
in new HCI grads: product design, and experimental design and statistics. This may have
to do with the university they come from, the survey nature of HCI academic programs,
and the broad intellectual orientation of the individual who goes into any multidiscipli‐
nary field.
In the design area, most new grads come in without a working knowledge of a design
process. From some programs, they understand design theory, but they have never
started with a blank sheet of paper (or screen) and created a working product from start
to finish. From other programs, they think that design is programming, so they start
coding on the first day, and attempt to create a product “bit by bit.” From still other
programs, they attempt to test and analyze their way into product creation. While all of
these approaches are complementary and play a role in the design process, they don’t
produce an actionable design. This is why high tech companies still hire most product
designers from design schools granting BFA and MFA degrees, as they come in knowing
a design process.
Professional designers understand that product architecture is a very advanced skill.
Less experienced designers start in apprentice and journeyman roles, first creating
smaller components such as icons and then whole workflows and features that merge
into the grand design. Understanding what a design process is, how to follow it, where
a project is in the process, and how to work with others to get it done, are things that
could be taught through project workshops, design jams, hackathons, and internships,
if the HCI program has faculty members who have this experience themselves.
Experimental design and statistics is truly an area of expertise where “what you don’t
know can hurt you.” Many new HCI hires come in thinking they can do a brief survey
on a product prototype with five of their colleagues and find out if it is usable. Or they
just want to have “a conversation” with users about their product with no prepared
questions. They do not have sufficient knowledge of experimental design, including
techniques to minimize experimenter and subject biases, use of control conditions, or
736 F.F.-H. Nah et al.
the effects of confounding, to prepare a methodologically sound study. They may not
wish to conduct statistical tests, yet they do not understand that their results can be badly
flawed and lead to the wrong design decisions if they do not test enough users. Their
findings may not be representative of the user population, or may be merely anecdotal
considering the small sample size. Yet companies make million dollar decisions based
on these findings. If new grads cannot get enough depth in experimental design and
statistics in their HCI programs, they should at least be made aware that this isn’t one
of their strengths, and how to recognize and support someone who is equipped to design
and run a study. At the very least, they should know when they need to do a controlled
behavioral study, and what type of study is needed based on the stage of the design
process.
Two academic researchers from University of Dayton and Rochester Institute of
Technology recently published results of surveys of new human factors professionals
in their first jobs, hiring managers, and human factors students in academic programs
about their expectations of HF/E programs. The results were keyed to the BCPE ergo‐
nomist formation model. While the details of the results differed based on whose
perspective was being surveyed, there was common agreement on a couple of key areas
[22]:
The “take-home” message from the three surveys is quite clear: To better prepare new HF/E
professionals for the demands of the workplace, their training should include practice in design,
project management, working in interdisciplinary teams, and making persuasive arguments for
human factors in all project phases. These are topics that could be incorporated into any college
curricula on any topics, and we hope that educators hear this message loud and clear.
4Conclusions
This paper offers perspectives from HCI practitioners and academics on ways in which
greater synergy between HCI academia and practice can be achieved. The authors are
the panelists at the 2015 HCI International Conference that is to be held in Los Angeles,
California from August 2–7, 2015. The panelists will present their views at the confer‐
ence and are looking forward to receiving comments, feedback and suggestions from
the audience on how to achieve the mutual goal of closing the gap between HCI academia
and practice, and, further, how to create greater synergy across them.
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