Example Reading Summary
Whitacker summarizes past successes of HCI while offering challenges for the future. To him, major successes include the ubiquitous presence of WYSIWYG interfaces and the development of the user experience. These successes are supported with well-accepted examples such as consumer enthusiasm for Apple products. Consensus on the design process is cited as another (understated) success, which is then used to organize challenges among its four iterative components: understanding users, generating designs, prototyping and evaluation. Perhaps most notable is the successful development of evaluation methods, which is now ushering in new questions for how large-scale systems should be evaluated. Finally, Whitacker finds that HCI theory is underdeveloped, particularly for comprehensive theories that explain how HCI technology affects human behavior. Less clear is what such theory would entail.
Dividing process into these four steps may be more contentious than Whitacker acknowledges. Are generating designs and prototyping necessarily distinct? Their successful integration may be yet another challenge for successful HCI practices, particularly with the advent of responsive design.
Comments on summary: note that the article makes many points, but only a few are noted here. For example, this summary doesn't try to name challenges for each of the design steps. Your summary may highlight other points. That's fine, provided that the point still exemplifies an essential element of the article.
Discussion Questions
After posting your summary, visit the discussion post on D2L to contribute to the discussion. You can either respond to submitted questions or submit a new question. Here are some example questions for this article:
- Is the interaction design process best described by the steps Whitacker mentions (understanding users, generating designs, prototyping, and evaluation)?
- Do we have examples of useful theories that address HCI at the social level?
- What evaluation methods best predict if a product will produce compelling user experiences?