Working Group 13.4/2.7 – User Interface Engineering

The aim of IFIP Working Group 2.7 / 13.4 is to investigate the nature, concepts and construction of interactive systems.

Advancing the state of the art in user interface engineering and science through meetings and collaborations between researchers who are experts in the system and user aspects of the engineering design of interactive systems.

Engineering emphasizes the application of scientific knowledge and rigorous structured design methods to predictably and reliably improve the consistency, usability, scalability, economy and dependability of practical problem solutions.

In HCI, engineering approaches are broad, they include:

Systematic, scientifically grounded methods and processes for interactive system design and evaluation that will enable more rapid; consistent and reliable development of new interactive systems;
Methods, languages, processes, and tools that embody scientific knowledge to improve interactive systems;
New software and hardware architecture and technologies that enable effective solutions to design problems;
Studying the performance and behaviour of existing interactive systems.
An example is given by model-based approaches for supporting design or evaluation, which aim to help designers and developers by highlighting the key aspects of interest.

Various types of models can be relevant: user, task, interaction, user interfaces, context … 

provide a framework for reasoning about interactive systems;

provide an engineering model for the development of user interfaces.