HCI2003 Comment: Let's share the Toys

I've just returned from HCI 2003, and I'm not happy. As with most conferences it was a bit of a curate's egg – but the final keynote from Hiroshi Ishii of MIT was great and inspiring and all the things that you want to walk away with: happy, generative thoughts that remind you why you got into all this in the first place.

Sadly, I didn't attend the whole thing because my immune system was being savaged, but in at least three of the six sessions I did attend I heard a fair bit of piffle talked about psychology and psychologists, their attachment to their labs and their narrow pursuit of single variable studies. Well, pardon me, but as a psychologist who hasn't tried to persuade anyone to give him a lab for at least ten years I'd like to call for some perspective and balance.

Psychology is a broad church and I guess that we accept many shades of truth. Even I (a chartered psychologist for goodness sake and damned as a worshipper at the alter of rational empiricism) have spent a long, long time getting my hands dirty in the real complex, messy world of out there: trying to understand what's going on and trying to make it better through design. Now it was interesting that, not only were the decriers invariably individuals claiming that they did the real research, but some said "I know this to be true because I did psychology"! Sharp intake of breath? Collapse of stout party? I think not.

You see, I can recite a recipe book but am I a cook? Nope, and - at the risk of flogging this analogy to death – in my experience you may need a lot of cooks with different hats on (some in the kitchen and others just providing and sharing the ingredients) to get a passable interaction design of any favour served up.

So, if you occasionally feel that you have some kind of methodological high ground – and think that being 'in the field' is something only you understand - just walk slowly towards the light. Sure, psychologists made hay in the 80s banging on about mechanistic models of cognition and behaviour – but most of us got over it and so will you. Lets share the toys!

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