In March 2007, Microsoft Research organised the ‘HCI 2020’
meeting at the El Bulli Hacienda Hotel near Seville, Spain.
The
event’s title expressed its key question: what will Human-
Computer Interaction (HCI) be like in the year 2020? That
question is important because HCI, significant as it was in
the late 20th century, has a pivotal part to play in the
21st,
when computers will become so pervasive that how humans
interact with them will be a crucial issue for society.
HCI 2020 produced many ideas, both thrilling and troubling.
This report is not a conventional publication of an academic
conference but seeks to convey the passion of those ideas,
both for the general reader and the HCI practitioner. For
the general reader, this is important because knowledge of
what the future might be may empower, while ignorance
harm. For the HCI practitioner, its purpose is to map out
the
terrain and suggest new approaches while keeping an eye
on the main prize: the embodiment of human values at the
heart of computing.
This two-day forum brought together academics from
the fields of computing, design, management science,
sociology and psychology to debate, contribute to,
and help formulate the agenda for Human-Computer
Interaction in the next decade and beyond. Participants
also came from the commercial world, including
representatives from software companies, hardware
manufacturers, and content providers.
The forum was convened because the field of HCI has
moved on and matured in many significant ways since its
emergence in the early 1980s. Over the years, a number
of influential books and articles have helped to shape its
goals and perspectives. As HCI has developed, many of the
questions posed by its past research agendas have been
answered, while others have become less important with
the passing of time. Computing itself has moved on from
what was possible when HCI first developed. As a result,
many members of the HCI community have begun to voice
concerns that HCI needs a new agenda if it is to continue to
be relevant for the 21st century.
If there was one thing that the participants in this forum
had in common, it was a recognition that any new direction
for HCI would need to place human values at its core. The
great accomplishment of HCI has been, to date, that it
allows
investigations of matters beyond what one might call the
mechanics of the interface, such things as the design of the
graphical user interface, and of keyboards and of mice. Its
success now allows researchers to focus on how computers
can support human-to-human concerns, rather than simply
human-machine interaction. HCI has helped to produce a
world in which interacting with computers is easier and
richer.
The real HCI issues now include what might be our
aspirations,
our desires for self-understanding and expression, and our
willingness to use imagination to create a different future.
The questions that result are far-reaching and profound.
HCI can no longer be solely the scientific investigation of
what role technology might have – it will need to be part of
the empirical, philosophical and moral investigation of why
technology has a role. It will entail asking new questions
about how we ought to interact with technology in this
new world and it will even entail asking what the use of
computing implies about our conceptions of society. Even
philosophical questions will be important. For example,
our concepts of how the mind works will affect the way we
design technologies to support memory, intelligence and
much more besides. All of this implies that other
disciplines
from the Arts and Humanities will become more relevant as
the remit of HCI becomes broader.
The goal of the forum was therefore to uncover and
articulate new paradigms, goals and perspectives for HCI.
By bringing together some of the world’s leading thinkers
on this topic, the hope was that their discussions, debates
and scholarly commentaries would help define how HCI can
deliver this ‘human face’ of computing.
This report is the result of that forum. It is not a record
of
the papers presented or discussions held, but a
distillation,
an attempt to capture the spirit of what concerned and
excited the participants, looking ahead to 2020. It
describes
how the world around us has changed and continues
to change, and how the design of computers is helping
to create a new socio-digital landscape. It explains how
the field of HCI can contribute to making this landscape
one that reflects the values we hold as well as provide
opportunities for the expression of diversity in those
values.
Being human is not simply a label; it is about a set of
aspirations. Recognising those aspirations and striving to
realise them can make the world we live in one to celebrate
rather than fear.
Needless to say, this report cannot encompass all the
issues that this ambition implies, just as it cannot relay
all
the topics raised by the participants at the forum. While
we have endeavoured to represent, as much as possible,
the views of the contributors, its main purpose is to entice
the reader, whoever that might be, to think more seriously
about the role of computing in our everyday lives. If it can
further highlight the importance of a new kind of HCI in
making 2020 the kind of future we want it to be, so much
the better.
Last but not least, we would like to thank: all the
participants in HCI 2020, and the organisations and
institutions that supported them; Sarah Cater who
organised the event; Vicki Ward and Rachel Howard
for public relations and marketing; Angela Still for
local support; Denise Stanley who facilitated the event;
Stephen Emmott for advice and guidance; Bill Buxton
who inspired the title of this report; book designer Nick
Duffield; designer Richard Banks for helping with images;
editor Peter Bradley; and our careful printer, Piggott Black
Bear. Finally, a special thanks to the director of Microsoft
Research Cambridge, Andrew Herbert, who gave the green
light for this event and made it possible.
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