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87  Australasian Journal of Information Systems     Volume 13 Number 2    May 2006 

AJIS FEATURED THEME: 

 

HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS 

 

Theme Editors: 

 

Sandrine Balbo 

University of Melbourne 

Email: sandrine@unimelb.edu.au 

 

Todd Bentley 

Monash University Accident Research Centre 

 

Penny Collings 

University of Canberra 

 

 

The fields of information systems and human-computer interaction (HCI) are intertwined through 

their interest in successful systems design; this involves acknowledging the human and technical 

dimensions of work (and leisure) in systems design and evaluation.  Indeed there are many 

similarities within the fields, namely the promotion of participative systems design approaches and 

the analysis of user-needs in order to understand how the system should perform.  Specifically, HCI 

practitioners and researchers are interested on how to best address human needs and desires within 

the context of system use and performance.  To achieve this, HCI draws upon knowledge from the 

field of Information Systems, as well as Psychology, Graphical Design, Sociology, Computer 

Science, and Ethnography (among others).   

 

With the increase in technology used in ‘everyday life’, understanding human needs within the 

system has become even more challenging – there is an increasing demand to understand not just 

how the person will use the product in question, but also how the overall context surrounding them 

impacts upon this and how the person perceives the quality of interaction.  Two recent areas of 

development and focus within the field of HCI are to understand the use of ubiquitous computers 

and mobile devices.  Another recent avenue of interest is to understand how products should be 

designed so that they can be used by anyone regardless of their personal capacities (e.g. older users; 

blind; children; etc.).  Again, these areas highlight the need to understand both the human and 

technical aspects in order to develop an optimal system – a common goal shared by HCI and IS. 

 

OZCHI is the annual conference on (HCI) run by CHISIG, the Computer-Human Interaction Special 

Interest Group of the Ergonomics Society of Australia.  Starting in the late 1980s, OZCHI offers a 

national and international forum for the presentation of current research and industry practice in HCI 

through papers, panels, workshops, tutorials and posters.  The papers included here were judged to 

be the five best presented at OZCHI 2005.   For publication in AJIS, they have been extended to 

provide more theoretical background than was initially published through OZCHI. Each paper was 

initially blind reviewed through the OZCHI review process, then again for the award of the Gitte 

Lindgaard prize during the conference, and finally for this journal. Our appreciation extends to the 

reviewers involved in all stages.   

 

These papers serve to highlight several current topics within the HCI field: the need to look at ‘non-

traditional’ methods in order to assess how well a system will work within a specific context (Lin et 

al., Graham et al.); designing systems to aid interaction between people in addition to just between a 



 

Australasian Journal of Information Systems     Volume 13 Number 2    May 2006    88 

human and a computer (Graham et al., Tran et al.); and the research and design implications of 

moving into a mobile world (Hagen et al., Baudisch et al.). 

 

The editors gratefully acknowledge the work of the revierers in the preparation of this AJIS Feature 

Theme: Ash Donaldson, Different Solutions Pty Ltd (Australia), Susan Hansen, ICT Centre, CSIRO 

(Australia), Keith Cheverst, Computing Department, Lancaster University (UK) and Anxo Roibas, 

School of Computing, Mathematical & Information Sciences, University of Brighton (UK).