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1.7 Who is the audience for your research? 11

HCI researchers has a well-known focus on the theoretical underpinnings of any
research. Computer science-based HCI researchers often have less interest in theory
and much more of an interest in the practical outcomes of the research on interfaces
(although Carroll, 2003 is a noteworthy effort on theory in HCI). This distinction
is seen, for instance, in the Technology Acceptance Model, which is core theory
and has central importance for HCI researchers focused on management information
systems (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000), but is not well-known to the HCI
researchers focused on computer science. While general computer science research-
ers have a great deal of theory in, say, algorithms, HCI research in computer science
does not have a major focus on theory.
When having interdisciplinary discussions and working on interdisciplinary
teams, it's important to be aware of these distinctions. Sociology-based HCI research
tends to focus on the demographics of the research participants and determining if
they are a true random sample, while this is not considered critical in computer sci-
ence, where computer science students are often used as participants (even when
it is not appropriate). Psychology-based HCI research tends to focus on an ideal
and clean research design. HCI research based on computer science and on design
is focused more on the implications for interfaces, although computer science may
focus more on the technical underpinnings while design focuses more on the look
and feel of the interface. These are just generalizations, obviously; all disciplines
want excellence at all stages of research, but it is true that disciplines tend to focus
more intensely on particular stages of research. The good news is that we want all of
these different groups focusing on improving each stage of the research process. We
WANT different groups looking at research through their different lenses. We want
to get that triangulation (described more in Section 1.8), where people look at the
same research questions, using different methods, different approaches, and different
lenses, over time, with the goal of discovering some scientific truths.

1.7 WHO IS THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR RESEARCH?
Most researchers in HCI often, unknowingly, target their HCI research towards other
researchers. The metrics that are used most often to ascertain impact of a research
publication, relate to the number of times that a paper is cited in other publications,
and impact factor of the journal or conference proceeding. Metrics used in many
areas of science, such as the h-index, can be used to ascertain productivity of an
individual researcher, rather than a specific article, but again, it is based primarily
on how the specific researcher has impacted other researchers. Alternative metrics,
such as tracking number of downloads, using microblogging (e.g., Twitter), online
reference managers (e.g., Zotero and Mendeley) and blogging to track impact, are
also gaining in popularity (Bornmann, 2015). However, these metrics are reflections
of how a research publication impacts other researchers, not how a research publica-
tion has impact outside of the research world. The idea of societal impact outside
of other publications, is not something that most researchers receive training on, or