Ann Austin

So, Who Exactly IS The HCI Professional?

Little is known about the cognitive profile of the HCI practitioner or educator, or how their individual differences impact upon practice in the field or the classroom. To address this, we conducted surveys to collect the cognitive style of practitioners, educators, and those with both roles, followed these up by interviews. It was found that practitioners are more comfortable employing both analytical and intuitive approaches than the general population, and that the educator is able to suppress intuitive tendencies when performing analytical tasks. The profile of the educator who practices is different from the educator who does not practice, and the educator who does not practice is more evangelical about the subject. Recognising and accepting these differences is essential if we are to design a curriculum that supports the needs of the field.

An intercultural study of HCI education experience and representation

The discipline of human-computer interaction has become a subject taught across universities around the world, outside of the cultures where it originated. However, the intercultural implication of its assimilation into the syllabus of courses offered by universities around the world remains under-researched. The purpose of this ongoing research project is to provide insights for these implications in terms of the student and teacher experience of HCI. How this subject is socially represented across the different universities studied is a key question. In order to develop intercultural awareness of these questions universities from UK, Denmark, Namibia, Mexico and China are collaborating in a multiple case study involving students and lecturers engaged in evaluation and design tasks. Findings will then be used to propose an international HCI curriculum more supportive of design for intercultural collaboration. This paper describes the initial steps of this study and some preliminary findings from Namibia.