Common Ground

A common ground does not mean strong unification; it does not imply that everyone has the same goals, shares the same view of the world, and acts the same way. A common ground allows for certain diversity and individuality, enables shared views and vocabularies, and tolerates sub-communities, sub-discplines, and the like. However, there is always a core of common concepts and views.

The common ground is dynamic in nature and therefore is often a matter of explicit negotiation and communication. A common ground can fall apart and eventually can get lost; hence, it needs constant maintenance in order to keep the community, culture, and discipline alive.

Scientific and engineering fields evolve based on common goals, paradigms, conceptual frameworks, methods, and theories. As they mature, they tend to increase their structure in terms of sub-fields, and the trend continues toward sub-dividing not only the field but also jobs, communities, and events. Through this evolution, some fields lose their identity, and thereby their common ground; in the end they often fall apart. Other, stronger fields experience paradigm shifts, changes of views, the emergence of new frameworks and theories and keep themselves alive by a constant effort to integrate new views into their own common ground.

Since its emergence, the field of "Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)" has evolved through such a dynamic, and the CHI conference is a mirror of that evolution. Sub-fields emerging from HCI, like "Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)", Participatory Design and "User Interface Software Technology (UIST)" now have their own platforms in addition to CHI. Some of these fields have voted for a radical paradigm shift in contrast to old paradigms which have played a major role in the common understanding of the field of HCI. From the technology corner, new sub-fields like Hypermedia, Multimedia and Virtual Reality are arising.

In the past, we have built bridges, we have showcased and celebrated interdependence, and we have worked on the creation of a mosaic of creativity. It is time now to focus on defining our common ground.

The more our field matures, the more we need to understand its common ground. We need to understand that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Technological progress alone can not determine the maturity of the field.

CHI 96 invites the community of HCI to define its Common Ground. And there are many facets of this for which we need to identify, to explore, to understand, to adjust, and to build a common ground:

• for the field as a whole and its sub-fields,
• for the field and its partner fields in the interdisciplinary cooperation,
• between different communities like research and practice,
• between different cultures of the world,
• between the consumers of our technology and the artifacts we are designing and building for them,
• between the many different consumers, including people with special needs,
• and, last but not least, between people attending CHI.

CHI 96 is the place to explore the development of unifying frameworks in which all of us are at least conversant. It is the place to showcase collaborative efforts between inhabitants of different "worlds", and to provide educational opportunities not only for achieving a deeper understanding of our own disciplines, but also for learning about the related disciplines and to take that knowledge back home to enhance our own work.

CHI continues to be a conference that spawns new fields. It is also the connection point for the collaborative efforts of persons across disciplines. And, it is the point of integration for individual fields into a coherent whole that advances the acceptance and respectability of researchers, engineers and artists alike.

Please join us in exploring the Common Ground!

Kevin Schofield and Michael J Tauber
CHI 96 Conference Co-Chairs