Although HCI emerged in the 1980s, it owes a lot to older disciplines. The most central of these is the field of human factors, or ergonomics. Indeed, the name of the preeminent annual conference in HCi the Association for Computing
Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems uses that term. SIGCHi is the special interest group on computer-human
interaction sponsored by the ACM.2
Human factors is both a science and a field of engineering. It is concerned with human capabilities, limitations, and performance, and with the design of systems that are efficient, safe, comfortable, and even enjoyable for the humans who use them. It is also an art in the sense of respecting and promoting creative ways for
practitioners to apply their skills in designing systems. One need only change systems in that statement to computer systems to make the leap from human factors to HCI. HCI, then, is human factors, but narrowly focused on human interaction with
computing technology of some sort.
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