ABSTRACT
Abstract: Human-computer interaction (HCI) draws on a wide range of academic disciplines and leverages many different theoretical foundations. Identifying the right research projects to pursue in this domain, executing the research, and finding an appropriate outlet for such work is a challenge. This paper presents ways to determine appropriate projects, discuss the role of theory in the formation of a project, analyze issues underlying success in research design, and explore the different models for publishing “relevant” HCI research. Our focus is on laboratory experiments used for theory testing. Keywords: MIS Research, HCI Research, Human-Computer Interaction
INTRODUCTION
Human-computer interaction (HCI) draws on a wide range of academic disciplines and leverages many different theoretical foundations; as such, it is one of the truly interdisciplinary areas of study. Often, individuals working on comparable HCI issues but from different perspectives are not familiar with one another’s work due to the limited cross-fertilization among the various streams of HCI that are building on different reference disciplines (Zhang and Dillon, 2003). Identifying the right research projects to pursue in this domain, crafting the theory, executing the research, and finding an appropriate outlet for such research is a challenge. It is particularly difficult to select projects that can both support knowledge creation in the field and lead to successful publications in top-level journals, either in HCI or in one of its reference disciplines. Despite these difficulties, it is essential that research resources are used effectively (on meaningful and useful projects) and efficiently (so that the selected projects are executed correctly).
