The Three Paradigms of HCI

Text Exploration

In this text, the authors argue that a third paradigm of Human-Computer Interaction research exists, but has not been considered with depth and rigor in the HCI community, and therefore is not taken seriously by traditionalists. This third paradigm, which is named Phenomenologically-Situated, views interaction as situated, meaning as created and recreated continually, and human subjectivity as something to celebrate, not something to be isolated and removed from research.

The word “paradigm” is selected as a way to indicate a changing overlapping “wave” of research that shifts the way a community thinks and behaves. Human factors was the first paradigm acknowledged in HCI, one rooted in understanding and optimizing the way people interact with machines. The goal of research in this space is to “optimize the fit between humans and machines.” The second paradigm is one of cognitivism and information processing, where the goal of research is to “enable communication between the machine and the person.” Missing is an understanding of the third paradigm: one that is phenomenology situated.

This paradigm has several qualities that bound and describe it. One is that interaction is socially situated; others relate to the pursuit of indirect and multiple goals, non-task-based use of computing technology, “handling” emotions, and considering ethics and values. The authors define the paradigm of phenomenologically-situatedness: it has a focus on meaning and meaning creation that is based on human experience and can be represented through multiple perspectives.

This third paradigm requires a different set of commitments from researchers. One is to assume and recognize that meaning is created “on the fly,” rather than existing in nature waiting to be found. Another is to recognize the settings of users themselves as being instrumental to their engagement with computing. Researchers also should recognize their own situated nature: they are not objective evaluators or observers. They must “ask questions about what it means for a system to be ‘good’ in a particular context,” making assertions about values rather than trying to ignore them. Researchers should recognize the situated nature of interaction, which questions how society is produced by a behavior, how people arrange their world, and raising questions of people’s relationships to one-another.

The authors compare the different types of knowledge produced and assumed by the various paradigms, emphasizing that in the third paradigm, knowledge is viewed as “intrinsically tied to the situation” rather than standing alone. Knowledge is specific: the individual interactions that people experience and contribute to have specific qualities, and these should be celebrated rather than abstracted into theory. Interpretation matters—research does not simply generate data to be analyzed for truth. And, the process of research in the paradigm is implicitly messy.

Conferences like CHI have traditionally ignored this third paradigm and considered it invalid: research conducted in this conceptual space does not offer a solid contribution to the community of scholars. The authors argue that this may be because reviewers are untrained in the methods and approaches that make up the paradigm, that they may be evaluating work through a different lens (of the author two paradigms), or that they may not value this form of work. The result for authors and researchers is the use of “a small number of recipe-like methods” attempting to provide “rigid standards for truth.” The use of methods is exclusive, and the authors view this as problematic for the discipline at large.

The authors summarize their argument: that there is a fundamental need for recognizing the third paradigm of HCI research, which does not conflict with or replace the first two paradigms.