Longitudinal Studies in HCI Research: A Review of CHI Publications from 1982-2019

Longitudinal studies in HCI research have the potential to increase our understanding of how human–technology interactions evolve over time. Potentially, longitudinal studies eliminate learning or novelty effects by considering change through repeated measurements of interaction and use. However, there seems to exist no agreement of how longitudinal HCI study designs are characterized. We conducted an analysis of 106 HCI papers published at the CHI conference from 1982 to 2019 where longitudinal studies were explicitly reported. We analysed these papers using classical longitudinal study metrics, e.g. duration, metrics, methods, change or stability. We illustrate that longitudinal studies in HCI research are highly diverse in terms of duration lasting from few days to several years and different metrics are applied. It appears that the paper contribution type highly influences study design, while only a little more than half of the papers discuss or illustrate change/stability during their studies. We further underline considerations of durations versus saturation, identifying points of measurements and matching contribution types with research questions. Finally, we urge researchers to extend implications presented on perceiving duration as a singular attribute, as well as longitudinal systematic approaches to ‘in situ’ studies and ethnography in HCI.