2018 marks 30 years since the launch of the SIGCHI Curriculum Development Group (CDG), who led the development of the foundational ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction. Published in 1992, the Curricula included a working definition of HCI as well as examples of individual courses. This publication was vital to the establishment and growth of HCI education programs. CDG Chair Tom Hewett noted in the Preface that the report was meant to be “the first iteration” of the product, with plans for iterative refinement over time.
26 years further on since 1992 and the fields of HCI and UX show no slowing in its headlong rush towards the future. The internet of things, virtual reality, wearable computing, and user interfaces for intelligence systems, are just some of many exciting new areas that HCI is expanding in to. It is thus timely to capitalize on this strong rise in the fields of HCI and UX to define what are the Canons of HCI and UX education in 2018 and beyond. Namely, this workshop proposes to take an introspective look at the seminal texts/articles, topics, and pedagogical approaches to build robust and successful HCI/UX curricula. In particular, the workshop aims to investigate what are Canons of HCI and UX education, how to effectively incorporate these Canons into our curricula, and how to better define the curricula for UX-related degrees and certificates. We aim to publish an article summarizing the findings of the workshop.
Bill Buxton
Principal Researcher
Microsoft Research