Top Research Labs in Human-Computer Interaction?

legLess writes: "Jakob Nielsen's latest Useit column lists his opinion of the best HCI research labs, from 'The Dawn of Time' (1945) 'til now. Xerox PARC made the list each decade, naturally. He says that future HCI research is in jeopardy, partly due to Universities backing away from 'real-world' research, and partly because 'HCI has rarely been the first priority of new research organizations, so by the time research managers recognize the need for it and build up a world-class HCI team, it's often too late.' Is he right about the best labs? Is he right about his other conclusions?"

Comments

eh? maybe a different reason

[Telastyn]

This might be dumb/silly but isn't it more that Universities usually give out research funds via department? and the deparements rarely ever share? and because this sort of research requires both CS/CE knowledge *and* psychology?

Re:Microsoft?

[Ubergrendle]

"MS has perhaps the best research team (at least nowadays) when it comes to HCI stuff. Think about it -- who invented that top-notch joystick? Natural shape keyboards? Wheeled mouse? MS on all three."

Joystick - Thrustmaster. Copied by MS.
Wheel mouse - Logitech. Copied by MS.
Natural keyboard - Not sure, but I had previously seen ergonomic models by IBM and Logitech long before MS got into the peripheral scene.

I suggest MS is being cited for its GUI UI design and consistency across product lines more than anything else.

What? HCI research is just now getting popular!

[sfrenchie]

He says that future HCI research is in jeopardy

I *strongly* disagree with him on this. In fact, the opposite is true. It is only in the past few years that universities and industry have realized that there is a HUGE demand for human factors or HCI specialists.

Engineering deparments are also realizing that undergrads can benefit greatly by taking a human factors course in product/system design.

If any one is interested in bringing human factors into their engineering education I suggest you look at Kim Vicente who is trying to make human factors a part of every engineers education.

Stimulating the web of academic attention

[ynotds]

In his article Nielsen bemoans:

It's striking that only two of the 12 research medals went to universities. I think this is because university departments seem to view the best HCI research as both too mundane and too resource intensive. Many academics disdain research topics that are closely connected to real-world needs.

From my experience this might be largely because the academic efforts network more readily than corporate labs do, and that experience might be closer to filling a book than a Slashdot post, so I'd better only mention where it all began.

Back in the mid '80s, inspired by Neilsen Norman Group partner Bruce Tognazzini to explore the syntheiss of graphical user interface and online information services, my then trade press hat was enough to get me in to have a chat about user interface research with Professor Peter Poole, the then relatively new head of the Computer Science department at my alma mater, the University of Melbourne.

At that interview Poole was dismissive of HCI as something best left to commercial interests but before the end of the '80s, through his role as chairman of an IFIP Technical Committee, he and I finished up in the Napa Valley at an IFIP working conference on Engineering for Human-Computer Interaction.

During those years, I had opportunities to follow a few of the interconnected strands of inspiration variously categorised under Hypertext, Computer-supported Cooperative Work and the broader Computer Graphics communities and share in the early work and inspiration coming from institutions in the form of Brown's Intermedia and MIT's Notes (pre-Lotus), and from indepenents like Ted Nelson and Doug Engelbart.

Meanwhile Prof Poole was making the University of Melbourne Australia's gateway to the Internet and creating a supportive campus-wide IT infrastructure that would allow a few early innitiatives to be explored, especially educational multimedia. But as is so often the way of academia, the benefit became spread much wider than Melbourne through the natural progression of individual careers.

Surprised UIUC hasn't been mentioned

[immyz]

I'm surprised UIUC hasn't been mentioned for our present endeavors in HCI. There's a lot of money and work flying around here.

The huge building known as the Beckman institute houses AI and HCI research with primary intermingling occurring among the CS and Psychology departments. Human-Computer Intelligence Interaction
...and then there's my favorite baby project on campus, Active Spaces. Active Spaces is just a part of the CS department, separate from Beckman, and is researching ways to gadgetize the new CS building, aka the Siebel center (currently-under-construction).