This special interest group probes potential problems between HCI researchers and the practitioners who are consumers of research, to explore the extent of the problems and propose possible solutions. It will start with the results of the CHI 2010 workshop on the same topic, articulating factors that may render some of the research literature inaccessible or irrelevant to practitioners. When should HCI researchers be concerned about the relevance of their work to practitioners? How should practitioners communicate their needs for research? Participants will discuss these topics and others that both groups can use to help bridge the gap between research and practice in HCI.
Abstract. Fundamental but virtually unexplored issues in human-computer interaction involve the roles of biases in software engineering tasks. In studies of naturalistic testing tasks, as well as ones which follow common laboratory models in this area, we have found ample evidence that testers have positive test bias. This bias is manifest as a tendency to execute about four times as many positive tests, designed to show that "the program works," as tests which challenge the program. In our prior work, we have found that the expertise of the subjects, the completeness of the software specifications, and the presence/absence of program errors may reduce positive test bias. Skilled computer scientists invent specifications to test in the absence of actual specifications, but still exhibit positive test bias.
In a Communications of the ACM article of April 1993 ("Human Communications Issues in Advanced UIs," pp. 101--109), Aaron Marcus makes a number of compelling points about the design of interactive computer systems for demographically-diverse user populations. In particular, he advocates interfaces that support users by providing an "appealing perceptual experience" both in their appearance ("look") and behavior ("feel"). He contends that the path to such appealing interfaces involves developing and evaluating candidate scenarious through "either professional intuition or focus groups, [developing] prototypes quickly, [evaluating] their utility carefully through testing, and [implementing] a practical version."
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