Grand challenges for HCI researchers

The remarkable impact of human-computer interaction research and user experience design compels researchers, practitioners, and journalists to ask: What is the next big thing? Therefore, it may be useful for our community to lay out grand challenges that steer the direction of future research, design, and commercial development. As HCI researchers, we are profoundly aware of the immense problems of our age: Growing human populations consume natural resources, flourishing cities require housing and transportation, families demand education and safety, and rising expectations from patients put pressure on healthcare and social systems. National priorities include economic development, political participation, civil rights, and achieving the delicate balance between appropriate security and excessive surveillance while pursuing open government policies that limit corruption and prevent waste. The U.S. National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges [1] provide a thoughtful list and international efforts such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals [2] suggest additional challenges. While addressing these problems, researchers, designers, and developers who recognize the aspirations of individuals, their desire for selfdetermination, and their hopes to contribute to their communities are more likely to deliver constructive products and services. These forward-looking innovators will manifest their sensitivity to individual and community norms, respect individual differences, and observe ethical codes of conduct. With these considerations in mind, the authors of Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (6th Ed) [3] described 16 grand challenges for researchers, designers, and developers: 1. Develop a handbook of human needs. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from the 1940s provides some guidance, establishing a foundation of survival and safety, embracing love and esteem, and supporting self-actualization that realizes personal potentials. However, a contemporary and detailed handbook of human needs would help in the refining of designs and invention of new tools or services. 2. Shift from user experience to community experience. User experience designers have cleverly invented interfaces and processes that support work, communication, and fun. Now there is an opportunity to shift to community experience design, social media participation, game theoretic mechanisms, and motivational strategies to engage growing communities in constructive ways. Successful examples, such as Wikipedia or citizen science projects, show what is possible, but the common outcome of community experience design is insufficient response, raising the question of how to make more consistently successful outcomes. This shift is mirrored in the theory shift from emphasis on micro-HCI to macro-HCI. 3. Refine theories of persuasion. Theories of persuasion could lead to more rapid progress in smoking cessation, obesity reduction, medication compliance, and cancer prevention. A periodic table of persuasion strategies would chart the micro-structure of motivation for designers who create applications for individuals, friends and family, colleagues and neighbors, and citizens and markets. 4. Encourage resource conservation. The needs of a growing population will have to be trimmed by efficient strategies for reducing the use of water, energy, and natural resources while increasing production from renewable sources. User interfaces and community engagement will play key roles in providing feedback that encourages winning strategies. 5. Shape the learning health system. A grand opportunity for HCI researchers and designers is to help shape massive healthcare systems that support patients seeking wellness, clinicians delivering care, and providers eager to reduce costs while increasing the quality of care. Macro-HCI thinking and big data analytic tools could provide insights at every level that could be shared with relevant stakeholders, but producing meaningful changes in such massive systems remains a challenge. Bottomup strategies could propel patient and clinician participation, while top-down governance is needed to set policies, cope with malicious actors, and guide continuous improvement. 6. Advance the design of medical devices. Researchers have been rapidly developing medical devices that go far beyond current hearing aids, pacemakers, body sensors, and datarecording tools. As implanted insulin pumps, vision-restoration systems, prosthetic limbs, brain-computer interfaces, and nanodevices mature, user interfaces to monitor performance, log activity, and enable appropriate controls will be required. 7. Support successful aging strategies. The growing population of older adults want to maintain their health and independence while aging in place. They could benefit from interfaces that collect data from sensors, encourage healthy diet and exercise, promote social connectedness, and enable balanced involvement from caregivers. How might the growing Internet of Things help older adults improve quality of life?