How do design and evaluation interrelate in human computer interaction (HCI) research?

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a multidisciplinary field, which combines the theories and practices from a number of fields including computer science, cognitive and behavioral psychology, anthropology, sociology, ergonomics, and more. HCI is defined by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) as “a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation, and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of the major phenomenon surrounding them” [16]. In HCI there are authors that focus more on designing for usability and there are authors that focus more on evaluating usability. The relationship between these communities is not really clear. We use author cocitation analysis, multivariate techniques, and visualization tools to explore the interrelationships between these communities. The results of the analysis reveal seven clusters that could be identified as Design Theory and Complexity, Design Rationale, Cognitive Theories and Models, Cognitive Engineering, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Participatory Design, and User-Centered Design