In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained […]. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am…
I’m so excited to share that my new book, co-edited with Shaowen Bardzell and Mark Blythe and entitled Critical Theory and Interaction Design, is now available. After discussing the need for such a book for years, we finally moved forward when we came upon a cool concept for it: we’d invite leading HCI researchers to identify…
Read more Critical Theory and Interaction Design (MIT Press) is Available!
Jeffrey Bardzell Indiana University (version: August 2018) [Background: This is a handout for MS HCI/d students that I’ve been iteratively working on for a decade or so. Given the recent interest in this topic–see, e.g., howtocrit.com–I’ve decided to make it publicly available.] Introduction As both design practitioners and everyday citizens, we all critique. We do…
One comment I hear from the HCI and design communities–from students and senior researchers alike–is the assumption that criticality is negative, that the role of a critique is to “destroy” something, or that critics just dump on the hard work of others. I want to push back against this idea, and I will explain why…
In a 2017 paper, Forlizzi, Koskinen, Hekkert, and Zimmerman called for a “divorce” between “pragmatic” and “critical” threads of “constructive design research” or CDR. At DIS 2018, they have a workshop around the theme of the paper. (Full disclosure: they invited me and my frequent coauthor Shaowen Bardzell to co-organize it, which we would have…
Read more Design Researchers Need a Shared Program, Not a Divorce
Why do we as researchers turn away from accepted knowledge, theory, and/or research? I don’t mean rejecting a given paper or objecting to a presentation. I am referring to categorically rejecting a whole knowledge practice, on account that it uses some method or epistemology or (fill in the blank) that one doesn’t like. This turning…
In this month’s Interactions magazine, there is an article I feel ambivalent about. It is Gaver and Höök’s “In Search of the Elusive CHI Design Paper“. I am ambivalent because there is much that I agree with and support, but at the same time some of its language–and practices it seems to support that I…
Read more Should the critical-interpretavist researchers of CHI leave the design subcommunity?
This is a quickie today. Recently (readers might have noticed) I have been reflecting a lot on my research practice. I have been trying to find those moments when I got things right and better recognize when I did not. And I am sharing this reflective process publicly in hopes of helping others find ways…
If I am right that HCI and neighboring fields will increasingly rely on the essay as a means of scholarly contribution and debate in the future, then it follows that the construction, articulation, and criticism of intellectual positions will become increasingly important. In Humanistic HCI, we talk about the essay, the epistemic roles of positions,…
I have noticed a dark pattern among papers that align themselves with critical or humanistic approaches to HCI. I myself have been guilty of contributing to that pattern (though I am trying to reform). But I still see it all the time as a peer reviewer and also as a Ph.D. supervisor. And since I spend so…
Interaction Culture 