Introducing HCI - a Practitioner’s Guide

HCI continues to grow in popularity amongst commercial practitioners, many of whom have no formal training or education in HCI. Conferences, such as HCI 2007, offer an attractive means for practitioners to increase their knowledge and skills. However, many such practitioners can find it difficult to understand how research presentations relate to their specific needs. They often fail to make the most of their attendance at conferences and can struggle to pull through knowledge from the HCI research reported into their own practices, due to their lack of HCI training. This tutorial presents an introduction to the discipline of HCI in the form of a practitioner’s guide, and so seeks to help delegates identify conference sessions, which offer the most promise for delivering value to the commercial practitioner. In so doing, it suggests ways in which the research can be pulled through into their practices, so increasing their engagement with HCI.