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1.10 Summary of Chapters 21

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What were some of the major shifts in the topics of HCI research from the
original focus on word processing and other office automation software?
Discuss at least two shifts in the focus of research.
2. What are the standard quantitative metrics that have been used in HCI research
since the early 1980s?

3. What are some newer metrics used in HCI research?
4. What is triangulation? Why is it important?
5. Why doesn't one published research paper equate to scientific truth?
6. Name four disciplines that have helped contribute to the field of human-
computer interaction.
7. What are the seven types of research contributions described by Wobbrock and
Kientz? Which two types are the most commonly performed types of HCI
research?
8. Are there any national or international data sets collected on a yearly basis for
HCI researchers?
9. What types of research questions in HCI does big data help us
understand? What types of research questions does big data not help us
understand? What types of research questions could longitudinal data help
us understand?
10. When researchers are doing research in an industrial setting to influence
new technologies being built for that company, what considerations do
they have, that HCI researchers working in a university, may not have
considered?

11. What are three suggestions for how to inform public policy makers about your
HCI research, relevant to their legislative, executive, or judicial work?
12. Give one benefit and one drawback of controlled laboratory studies versus field
studies.
13. Describe three professional challenges of interdisciplinary research.
14. Describe three research design challenges in interdisciplinary
research.
15. Describe three inherent conflicts in human-computer interaction.
16. What do you think the field of HCI research will look like in 20 years?