ACM Interactions

Jonathan Grudin has been active in CHI and CSCW since each was founded. He has written about the history of HCI and challenges inherent in the field’s trajectory, the focus of a course given at CHI 2022. He is a member of the CHI Academy and an ACM Fellow. [email protected]

Using technology to improve communication in panels

Posted: Fri, September 30, 2022 - 11:34:00

Panels can be fun to develop—they can also be much more effectively executed. This spring I was on two large panels that were the best organized of any I’ve participated in. Technology was used in advance to reduce psychological uncertainties, which increased interaction and kept us focused on our message. Expectations were exceeded. Both of the panels were in person,…

After the iron horse: Covid-19 responses in education

Posted: Wed, May 27, 2020 - 10:25:09

Research from the distant past regains relevance! From 1998 to 2000 and 2017 to 2020, I focused on higher education. Suddenly, some of the early work is again relevant. I’ll describe it here, along with some thoughts arising from conversations with educators, administrators, and my daughters. Forced by Covid-19 into functioning remotely, the education field quite sensibly seized upon familiar…

A history of human-computer interaction

Posted: Fri, March 24, 2017 - 10:46:31

A journey ended with the publication in January of my book, From Tool to Partner: The Evolution of Human-Computer Action.The beginningRon Baecker’s 1987 Readings in Human-Computer Interaction quoted from prescient 1960s essays by Vannevar Bush, J. C. R. Licklider, Douglas Engelbart, Ivan Sutherland, Ted Nelson, and others. I wondered, “How did I work for years in HCI without hearing about…

Observations on finishing a book

Posted: Tue, January 03, 2017 - 10:39:03

I’ve only posted twice to the Interactions blog in 8 months, but I’ve been writing, and frequently thought “this would be a good blog essay.” Minutes ago, I emailed in the last proof edit for a book. This post covers things I learned about writing and the English language after a brief, relevant description of the book.From Tool to Partner:…

Thailand: Augmented immersion

Posted: Thu, September 08, 2016 - 5:29:47

Our first day in Thailand, we visited the Museum of Regalia, Royal Decorations and Coins. Case after case of exquisite sets of finely crafted gold and silver objects from successive reigns: How had Thailand managed to hold on to these priceless objects for centuries?That night, Wikipedia provided an answer: Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country that avoided colonization and…

The joy of procrastination

Posted: Mon, July 11, 2016 - 11:37:43

I have long meant to write an essay on procrastination. Having just been sent a link to a TED talk on a virtue of procrastination, this seems a good time to move it to the front burner [1]. An alarming stream of research papers describe interventions to get chronic procrastinators like myself on the ball: wearable devices, displays mounted in…

Technology and liberty

Posted: Tue, May 03, 2016 - 10:22:39

The absence of plastic microbeads in the soap led to a shower spent reflecting on how technologies can constrain liberties, such as those of microbead producers and consumers who are yearning to be clean. Technologies that bring tremendous benefits also bring new challenges. Sometimes they create conditions conducive to oppression: oppression of the weak by the strong, the poor by…

Collateral damage

Posted: Tue, April 05, 2016 - 1:06:30

Researchers are rewarded for publishing, but this time, my heart wasn’t in it.It was 2006. IBM software let an employer specify an interval—two months, six months, a year—after which an email message would disappear. This was a relatively new concept. Digital storage had been too expensive to hang onto much, but prices had dropped and capacity increased. People no longer…

Technological determinism

Posted: Wed, March 09, 2016 - 12:21:43

Swords and arrows were doomed as weapons of war by the invention of a musket that anyone could load, point, and shoot. A well-trained archer was more accurate, but equipping a lot of farmers with muskets was more effective. Horse-mounted cavalry, feared for centuries, were also eliminated as a new technology swept across the globe, putting people out of work…

Wrong about MOOCs

Posted: Thu, January 28, 2016 - 3:04:01

This blog began in January 2013. There was a quid pro quo: You take the time to read my informal posts on a range of topics, I post observations only after convincing myself that they are viable. So far, only one has not held up, the first, January 2013’s “Wrong about MOOCs?” The third anniversary of the blog and the…