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Enjoy Thinking. Making Information usable. Information Systems in our knowledge based world.

VISION: Let us together, today, make information technology of tomorrow more usable, enjoyable and accessible for all

MISSION: Realize usable, enjoyable and accessible Interactive Multimedia Information Systems following Human-Centered Development

METHOD: Combine the HDM-Hypothetico-Deductive-Model* (Natural Science) with the PDCA-Deming-Cycle** (Engineering)

*) developed by Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the hypothetico-deductive method assumes that theories come from generalizations of observable data. However, these hypotheses, can not conclusively established until further verified by additional observations and experiments.
**) Plan-Do-Check-Act, William E. Deming (1900-1993) was promoter of quality-control methods in industrial production, consequently enabled a global success of many companies in Japan.

WE LIVE in a world of increasing access to information, in a world of pervasive, ubiquitous, sophisticated technology: smaller, faster, cheaper, increasingly powerful.

WE ARE drowning in information - but literally starving of knowledge ... technological performance is rapidly increasing - however, our human performance is also increasing, but NOT at the same speed. Consequently, there is a gap: WE WANT to bridge this gap between technological performance and cognitive performance. WE WANT to change.

OUR AIM is to combine the thinking, approaches and models from Natural Sciences with the thinking, approaches and process models from Engineering. Together these approaches CAN CHANGE.

Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), as a discipline in Computer Science (Informatics) traditionally bridges Psychology and Computer Science. Moreover, HCI has born and raised within the last years a little child: Usability Engineering (UE). UE is a discipline within Software Engineering (SE) and is dedicated to ensure that results and lessons learned from HCI research are integrated into development at a systemic level, consequently both aspects human and computer are of EQUAL importance.

The classic definition of HCI is "Human-computer interaction is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computer systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them." Today it is much more, since computers change their appearance and information has become a key element of our society - actually we are living in THE Information Society.

HCI&UE is a highly interdisciplinary field, inherently having specific problems; especially for younger researchers, who, being new to their field and not yet firmly anchored in one single discipline, are in danger of “falling between two seats.” Naturally, it is much easier to gain depth and acknowledgement within a narrow scientific community in one single field - often only a few people on this world do understand each other.

However, innovation and new developments often take place at the junction of two or more disciplines. Working in an interdisciplinary discipline requires a broader basis of knowledge and naturally much more effort and energy. Most of all, working in an interdisciplinary area, one needs the ability to communicate with professionals in other disciplines and a willingness to accept and incorporate their points of view. Most of all, our primary concern must be on our end users - the people using technology - the people using information - the people we want to support.


This pages are dedicated to HCI&UE issues. Some resources include:


The Workgroup HCI&UE of the Austrian Computer Society has established the USAB Symposium series in 2005:

Let us together, today, make technology of tomorrow more usable, enjoyable and accessible for all!

Last changed: 27.04.10

© A. Holzinger - Webmaster: a.holzinger@hci4all.at
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