Seven HCI Grand Challenges

This article aims to investigate the Grand Challenges which arise in the current and emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies, coupled with increased and widened societal needs, as well as individual and collective expectations that HCI, as a discipline, is called upon to address. A perspective oriented to humane and social values is adopted, formulating the challenges in terms of the impact of emerging intelligent interactive technologies on human life both at the individual and societal levels. Seven Grand Challenges are identified and presented in this article: Human-Technology Symbiosis; Human-Environment Interactions; Ethics, Privacy and Security; Well-being, Health and Eudaimonia; Accessibility and Universal Access; Learning and Creativity; and Social Organization and Democracy. Although not exhaustive, they summarize the views and research priorities of an international interdisciplinary group of experts, reflecting different scientific perspectives, methodological approaches and application domains. Each identified Grand Challenge is analyzed in terms of: concept and problem definition; main research issues involved and state of the art; and associated emerging requirements

Telematics for the community? An electronic village hall for East Manchester

Visions of the information city are mainly driven by the economic development potential of new information technology (IT). The role of information systems in community development remains relatively less well explored. The establishment of a municipal information system in Manchester, HOST, aimed directly at small businesses and community groups, provides a rare opportunity for a direct empirical investigation of IT policies for community development. The proposal for 'electronic village halls'�--�community IT resource centres�--�in East Manchester is examined for clues on emerging best practice for such community IT initiatives. It is concluded that current policies which concentrate resources into a few centres are antithetical to the spirit of information network formation, and create barriers to future development in information flows. In addition, policies to develop information networks in the community should be grounded in the interest groups in the urban system. This requires closer coordination between grass-root needs and the agencies which initiate development projects.