Toward human-centered systems

The National Science Foundation's Workshop on Human-Centered Systems: Information, Interactivity and Intelligence (Feb. 1997) underlined the need to incorporate people as an explicit design component. The resulting research recommendations will help define the agenda for one of five elements in a new high-performance computing initiative. This article summarizes preliminary research recommendations in visualization, virtual reality and interface design, drawing from position papers and workshop summaries. The common theme in these recommendations is nonintrusive environments that let users collaborate in the most efficient and natural way possible.