How WEIRD is HCI?: Extending HCI Principles to Other Countries and Cultures

Abstract

A large majority of articles published at prominent HCI venues such as CHI and CSCW reports on studies with WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) participants, ignoring that the results might not apply to other subject populations. This workshop aims to have the following two main outcomes: (1) A list of major principles that HCI researchers often build on and that are unlikely to apply to users in other countries and cultures. (2) An action plan that describes how we can extend these previous findings, such as by collaborating across countries and cultures, conducting large-scale online experiments, or creating a culture of replications and extensions with more diverse subject populations. Furthermore, the workshop aims to establish an interest group with the goal to improve the external validity of HCI research and to inform the design of further research studies in this area.