Summary

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a multidisciplinary field of research that focuses on the understanding and design of interaction between humans and computers. HCI has its roots in Human Factors and Ergonomics and cognitive sciences, but over the years it has underwent a variety of deep transformations, by importing a variety of approaches, theories, and methods from other disciplines, like anthropology and sociology. Theoretical perspectives like phenomenology, social practices theories, and grounded theory, are now fruitfully used by HCI researchers to interpret the behavior of people interacting with technology and ground the design of new interactive systems. In the same vein, HCI techniques for understanding, designing, and evaluating the interaction span from ethnography, semi-structured interviews, participatory design, and scenario-based design, to controlled experiments, usability testing, and research through design methods. At the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, HCI tackles practically every aspect of people’s lives, including matters like, techno-spirituality, global crises, death, sexuality, physical and cognitive disabilities, as well as technologies like wearable devices, self-changing and bio-interfaces, robots, virtual, mixed, and augmented reality applications. In this complex landscape, several promising lines of HCI research, which intertwine the individual, social, and organizational levels of the usage of technologies, are “gameful” interaction, self-tracking and behavior change technologies, and conversational agents.