Human-Computer Interaction Design (HCID) is the branch of informatics that studies and supports the design, development, and implementation of humanly usable and socially acceptable information technologies.
The goal of the field is to shape new media and tools that will support human use, augment human learning, enhance communication and lead to more acceptable technological developments at the individual and the social levels.
Research into HCID draws extensively on mainstream informatics concerns with cognition, communication, representation, and computation. HCID professionals seek to identify the nature and parameters of human information processing at the interface, to design forms of representation that support human interpretation and use of information, to reliably and validly test new technologies for usability and acceptability, and to determine how information technologies change working practices and social activities.
Regular job postings for HCID personnel express a desire for professionals with suitable scientific training in design and evaluation, and increasingly, applied social scientists with technological skills are finding employment in the software industry as HCI professionals.
At Indiana University, the HCID program draws faculty from across campus to provide the appropriate blend of multi-disciplinary expertise required to study this new discipline.
