Human-Computer Interaction

Chapter 8

Writing and Publishing a Research Paper

In Chapter 4 I noted that publication is the final step in research (see section 4.1.1). It is fitting, then, to make our final step a chapter on writing and publishing a research paper.

Most HCI research papers present a novel interface idea, then describe an evaluation of the idea in a user study. User studies are designed (or should be designed!) according to accepted standards for experiments with human participants, as laid out in Chapter 5. Adhering to accepted standards is important in HCI and other fields since the practice brings consistency to the body of work that contributes to and defines the field. This practice extends to the final step in research—preparing and publishing the ...