Human Computer Interaction Design: Research Areas: Research: Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering: Indiana University Bloomington

Making IT more effective through design

Successful IT products often push technical boundaries, but they also often meet—and even reveal—human needs and desires. As a field, HCI/d focuses on the ways that technologies can address needs that result in desired experiences. That is, HCI/d seeks to understand and advocate for users and other stakeholders, melding such insights with technologies to craft tools, systems, and services.

HCI/d at Indiana University is internationally recognized for its leadership in developing a design-oriented HCI research and practice. Integrating social science, aesthetic crafting, cutting edge technologies, and business strategy, this discipline is capable of envisioning and producing futures that are both desirable and impactful.

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Subareas

HCI/Design Theory

HCI/d faculty have collectively made major contributions to design theory. What is interaction? How do designers move beyond consumer desires to address deeper needs? How does visual thinking inform design practice? The answers to such questions are reshaping the academic discipline and organizational innovation in industry.

Political and Emancipatory HCI/d

We ask how HCI/d might contribute toward the social good: sustainable futures, the emancipation of marginalized individuals, improved democratic participation, and ways to prevent technologies from masking unequal exchanges of labor and value. We research and design with such concerns in domains such as IT innovation, health tracking, social media, digital fabrication, and digital fashion.

Sustainable Interaction Design (SID)

Sustainability is a central focus of interaction design. As a starting point from the perspective of sustainability, SID is defined as an act of choosing among or informing choices of future ways of being. This perspective of sustainability is presented in terms of design values, methods, and reasoning.

Design Studio-Based Teaching and Learning

Blending instructional traditions from HCI labs and studio-based design, HCI/d has innovated on teaching and learning in the field. Its courses feature close student/faculty relationships, a strong cohort model, and cutting-edge design theory and methods throughout its curriculum, including co-design, speculative design, design criticism, alignment diagrams, probe studies, and much more.

Human Computer Interaction Design