The decade of HCI

Abstract

As I write this, the year 2001 is drawing to close. It has truly been an overwhelming year, with highs and lows beyond anything we could have imagined and many ironies and messages for us in the HCI community. It seems so long ago now, but we began the year with an election ballot fiasco in the Unites States that proved beyond all doubts the importance of good usability in the artifacts we interact with everyday. In April we came together for an outstanding and memorable CHI conference in Seat-tle, where the passion in our community showed through in vigorous debates of important issues. In June we elected a new slate of SIGCHI officers, who are now hard at work working to make our organization better than ever. Then there was September, the September that we will never forget. The World Trade Center attacks showed us an example of the worst of what humans can do to one another, but it also showed us the best as people came out to help the victims in any way they could. It showed the great potential of the technologies we work on – mobile phones that saved lives, and the Internet that allowed people to communicate with relatives even when the telephone system in Manhattan failed. As we look into 2002, it's important that we realize our potential to make a positive impact on the world as HCI professionals who create technologies that enrich people's lives. But we also have the opportunity to make an impact as a larger HCI community, for as a whole we are truly greater than the sum of our parts. We have a threefold message that the world needs to hear: first, technology can empower people to achieve great things, but it must be created and designed carefully and with a proper understanding of who will be using it. Second , we have a social responsibility to make empowering technologies available and usable for as many people as possible, so that everyone can reach their full potential. And finally, building great, usable, and broadly available technologies is good business (and profitable, too). As chair of SIGCHI, it's my job to create opportunities for our messages to be heard, and to help the SIGCHI community to speak them. But I depend on each and every one of you for two things: to define details of the messages, and …