Culture and HCI: A still slowly growing field of research. Findings from a systematic, comparative mapping review

Abstract

Culture is a phenomenon that shapes and conditions outcomes of human-computer interaction in very significant ways. The goal of this study was to analyse the development of the field that studies culture as part of HCI research. To do so, a systematic mapping review was carried out that analyzed articles from seven high profile HCI journals and conference proceedings in 2010, and from 2016 to 2020. The results were then systematically compared to a previous study from Kamppuri et al. [14], which covered the time from 1990 to 2005. The analysis shows a steady increase in the number of articles that consider culture. However, given the importance of culture as a phenomenon, the increase in articles that consider culture from 0.9% in the period of 1990 to 2005 to 1.9% of the articles in the present sample (2010, 2016-2020) is inadequate. There is also room for improvement regarding the the limited extent to which culture is linked to underpinning conceptual and theoretical sources. If the HCI community wishes to establish knowledge that is globally more relevant, the concept of culture needs to be studied and articulated much more systematically.