Human-Computer Interaction:
An Opportunity for
Information Systems Researchers
Jenny Preece
Information Systems
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Preece@umbc.edu
www.ifsm.umbc.edu/~preece
www.ifsm.umbc.edu/onlinecommunities
www.id-book.com
Online communities
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A virtual space where people discuss and
exchange information and support
Patients, professionals, students, citizens
Small or large, local, national, or
international, virtual or physi-virtual
Sociability
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Purpose
People
Policies
Usability
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Dialog & social
interaction support
Information design
Navigation
Access
What makes an online
community successful?
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Guidelines, heuristics and metrics for
success
Participation - posting & lurking
Group dynamics
Trust in interpersonal communication
Empathic communities
www.ifsm.umbc.edu/onlinecommunities
www.id-book.com
SIGCHI 1992 Model of HCI
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/cdg/
Eason’s 1991 Socio-technical
systems: Levels of analysis
LEVEL 3
Society
Organizational
goal
Social system
LEVEL 2
Organization
LEVEL 1
Individual
People
Work
Organizational goal
Technical
system
Technology
ICIS Conference call
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Meeting the Challenges of a Global
Networked Economy
Business Models, Markets, and Economy
Innovation, Strategy, and Change
Organization, Culture, Decision-Making &
Knowledge
Time, Space, and Mobility
Architecture, Systems, & Infrastructure
Society, Policy, & Regulation
Meta Frameworks and Theory
ICIS Conference call

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





Meeting the Challenges of a Global
Networked Economy
Business Models, Markets, and Economy
Innovation, Strategy, and Change
Organization, Culture, Decision-Making &
Knowledge
Time, Space, and Mobility
Architecture, Systems, & Infrastructure
Society, Policy, & Regulation
Meta Frameworks and Theory
A change in emphasis
(based on Eason’s 1991)
Global
LEVEL 3
Society
Organizational
goal
Social system
LEVEL 2
Organization
LEVEL 1
Individual
People
Work
Organizational goal
Technical
system
Technology
Change in emphasis
from users interacting with technology
to users interacting with systems supported
by technology
Human-systems interaction
Emphasis on organization, society, global
Also in SIGCHI and Computer Supported
Co-operative Work (CSCW)
Human-systems interaction
Individual
usability
Mobile devices
Display design
Input strategies
Info. Viz.
Organizational
usability
Collaborating &
sharing
Information flow
Work flow
Cost-benefits
Quality measures
Societal
usability
Global networks
Culture & society
Mobility of people,
business, $$$
Trust, security,
privacy
Social capital
Expanding application areas
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E-areas: e-commerce, e-education & training,
e-government, e-health
Internet law, knowledge management, intercultural communication, communities of practice,
online communities, creativity support
Local & global markets, advertising, management
(B->C, B->B), business process, government
services, homeland security, international
development
Theories needed
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Individual: model human processor, (1980), Fitts’
Law, direct-manipulation (Shneiderman, 1982),
Norman’s 7 stages (1986)
Organizational: group support, computer
mediated communication – common-ground,
distributed cognition, activity theory
Societal: trust, reciprocity, social capital, intercultural communication, digital divide
MIS emphasizes theory
(Zhang et al, 2002)
Methods needed
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Individual: usability testing to compare
designs, modeling, heuristic evaluation
Organizational: comparative studies,
questionnaires, observation, ethnography,
contextual inquiry
Societal: network analysis, group process
analysis, survey analysis, diaries & logging,
virtual ethnography
Human-Systems Interaction:
An Opportunity for
Information Systems Researchers
Jenny Preece
Information Systems
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Preece@umbc.edu
www.ifsm.umbc.edu/~preece
www.ifsm.umbc.edu/onlinecommunities
www.id-book.com
Questions & comments
Recent publications
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Preece, J. (Ed.) (2002) Supporting Community and Building Social Capital. Special
edition of Communications of the ACM, 45, 4. 37- 73.
Preece, J. and Ghozati, K. (2001) Observations and Explorations of Empathy Online.
In. R. R. Rice and J. E. Katz, The Internet and Health Communication: Experience
and Expectations. Sage Publications Inc.: Thousand Oaks. 237-260.
Andrews, D., Preece, J., and Turoff, M. (2002) A conceptual framework for
demographic groups resistant to online community. I. J. Elect Commerce, 6, 3, 9-24.
Preece, J. (2001) Sociability and usability: Twenty years of chatting online. Behavior
and Information Technology Journal, 20, 5, 347-356.
Nonnecke, B. & Preece, J. (2000) Counting the silent. ACM CHI’2000, Hague, 73-80.
Brown, J. R., van Dam, A., Earnshaw, R., Encarnacao, J., Geudj, R., Preece, J.,
Shneiderman, B., Vince, J. (1999) Human-centered computing, online communities,
and virtual environments. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. 19, 6, 70-74.
Preece, J. (1998). Empathic communities: Reaching out across the Web. ACM
Interactions 5 (2), 32-43.
Preece, J. (1999). Empathic communities: Balancing emotional and factual
communication. Interacting with Computers, 12, 63-77.