Perspectives on HCI: Diverse Approaches (Computers and People)

A discipline which is not one's own is like a foreign culture-stimulating, yet sometimes difficult to understand. However, coming to comprehend someone else's research tradition can provide new insights and ideas into one's own.

The field of human-computer interaction (HCI) has attracted researchers with interests as diverse as formal mathematics, ethnography, cognitive psychology and conversation analysis. Each approach comes with different assumptions and perspectives on the practical problem of designing more effective systems.

This book contains ten tutorial chapters, each written to illustrate a particular approach to someone from outside that area. The authors are all international authorities in their particular fields, and are in a unique position to examine and communicate the essential nature of their work to readers who are not steeped in the same research traditions.

Perspectives on HCI will be essential reading for students and researchers in computer science, psychology, human factors and sociology who want to know how other disciplines approach the practical problem of making computers into more effective tools for people to use.

Audience: Mathematics, engineering, and physical science students taking an undergraduate course in linear algebra. All potential users of linear algebra.