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Subfield · Computer Science

Human-Computer Interaction research

Human-Computer Interaction is a subfield of Computer Science. Science Explorer counts 172k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: academic discipline.

Research works
172k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
17k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
8
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+37%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
26% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Human-Computer Interaction

What is Human-Computer Interaction research about, and what is growing?

By the world's output in 2021-25, its most used keywords are Virtual Reality, Social Interaction, Human-Computer Interaction, Embodiment, Presence, Gesture Recognition. Gaining share since 2011-15: Embodiment, Presence, Social Interaction, Virtual Reality, Hand Gesture. Losing share: Mobile Applications, Usability, User-Centered Design, Interaction Techniques.

▲ gaining share of this field◆ holding its share▼ losing share

Size is the world's fractional works in 2021-25 in the topics tagged with each word; colour compares the word's share of this field with 2011-15. Each links to the topic it comes from most.

All 21 words, with their numbers
  1. Virtual Reality24k▲ 1.43×2 topics
  2. Social Interaction22k▲ 1.70×2 topics
  3. Human-Computer Interaction18k▼ 0.81×3 topics
  4. Embodiment17k▲ 2.1×1 topic
  5. Presence17k▲ 2.1×1 topic
  6. Gesture Recognition14k▼ 0.85×2 topics
  7. Hand Gesture9,070▲ 1.25×1 topic
  8. Sign Language9,070▲ 1.25×1 topic
  9. Eye Tracking7,410▼ 0.83×1 topic
  10. Gaze Estimation7,410▼ 0.83×1 topic
  11. Design Research7,022◆ 0.88×1 topic
  12. User Experience7,022◆ 0.88×1 topic
  13. Computer-Mediated Communication5,116◆ 1.03×1 topic
  14. Emoticons5,116◆ 1.03×1 topic
  15. Interaction Techniques4,658▼ 0.52×1 topic
  16. Tangible User Interfaces4,658▼ 0.52×1 topic
  17. User-Centered Design3,966▼ 0.49×2 topics
  18. Data-Driven2,395◆ 1.13×1 topic
  19. Personas2,395◆ 1.13×1 topic
  20. Mobile Applications1,571▼ 0.26×1 topic
  21. Usability1,571▼ 0.26×1 topic

Which countries lead Human-Computer Interaction research?

On research quality in 2022-now, China, the United States and Germany rank highest in Human-Computer Interaction. By volume, China and the United States publish the most (8.4k and 7.1k works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 China #2 all time 1.18× citation excellence · 1.43× journals · 100% breadth 13.3% top 10% · 7.3k works
  2. 2 United States #1 all time 1.16× citation excellence · 1.51× journals · 100% breadth 12.2% top 10% · 5.9k works
  3. 3 Germany #3 all time 1.03× citation excellence · 1.42× journals · 100% breadth 9.2% top 10% · 2.3k works
  4. 4 United Kingdom #4 all time 1.20× citation excellence · 1.32× journals · 100% breadth 12.3% top 10% · 2.1k works
  5. 5 South Korea #8 all time 1.17× citation excellence · 1.18× journals · 100% breadth 13.5% top 10% · 1.2k works
  6. 6 Australia #6 all time 1.35× citation excellence · 1.13× journals · 100% breadth 14.6% top 10% · 986 works
  7. 7 Switzerland #5 all time 1.22× citation excellence · 1.89× journals · 100% breadth 12.7% top 10% · 385 works
  8. 8 Netherlands #7 all time 1.19× citation excellence · 1.37× journals · 100% breadth 13.0% top 10% · 654 works
  9. 9 Canada #9 all time 1.10× citation excellence · 0.99× journals · 100% breadth 11.7% top 10% · 1.1k works
  10. 10 Spain #11 all time 1.32× citation excellence · 0.96× journals · 100% breadth 12.6% top 10% · 822 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 37 countries ranked in Human-Computer Interaction. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Human-Computer Interaction

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 8.4k works
  2. 2 United States 7.1k works
  3. 3 India 4.2k works
  4. 4 Germany 2.7k works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 2.4k works
  6. 6 Japan 2.4k works
  7. 7 Indonesia 1.6k works
  8. 8 South Korea 1.4k works
  9. 9 Italy 1.4k works
  10. 10 Canada 1.3k works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 25.6%United States: 21.6%India: 12.9%Germany: 8.2%6 others listed: 31.7%26%largest
China8,433 · 25.6%United States7,103 · 21.6%India4,244 · 12.9%Germany2,716 · 8.2%6 others listed10k · 31.7%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Human-Computer Interaction research?

Carnegie Mellon University (United States) ranks first in Human-Computer Interaction on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Stanford University and University of Washington.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 Carnegie Mellon University United States · Pittsburgh · #3 all time 22.1% top 10% · 131 works
  2. 2 Stanford University United States · Stanford · #2 all time 19.3% top 10% · 74 works
  3. 3 University of Washington United States · Seattle · #6 all time 22.2% top 10% · 130 works
  4. 4 Chinese Academy of Sciences China · Beijing · #8 all time 16.2% top 10% · 200 works
  5. 5 Tsinghua University China · Beijing · #9 all time 16.0% top 10% · 149 works
  6. 6 Cornell University United States · Ithaca · #20 all time 20.3% top 10% · 90 works
  7. 7 Hong Kong Polytechnic University China · Hong Kong · #43 all time 21.7% top 10% · 120 works
  8. 8 Shanghai Jiao Tong University China · Shanghai · #17 all time 16.6% top 10% · 132 works
  9. 9 University of Cambridge United Kingdom · Cambridge · #23 all time 16.2% top 10% · 68 works
  10. 10 Nanyang Technological University Singapore · Singapore · #10 all time 23.5% top 10% · 71 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 72 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Human-Computer Interaction.

Top 100 Human-Computer Interaction institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 275 works
  2. 2 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 221 works
  3. 3 Tsinghua UniversityChina 180 works
  4. 4 The University of TokyoJapan 178 works
  5. 5 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and TechnologySouth Korea 173 works
  6. 6 SRM Institute of Science and TechnologyIndia 158 works
  7. 7 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 150 works
  8. 8 Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States 149 works
  9. 9 University of WashingtonUnited States 148 works
  10. 10 Binus UniversityIndonesia 143 works

Who are the leading researchers in Human-Computer Interaction?

Counting only their work in Human-Computer Interaction, Mel Slater, Hiroshi Ishii and Yvonne Rogers have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Mel Slater United Kingdom · #27,872 worldwide overall 44.7 of 108 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Hiroshi Ishii United States · #131,531 worldwide overall 29.6 of 81 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Yvonne Rogers United Kingdom · #54,709 worldwide overall 30.7 of 94 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Patrick Baudisch Germany · #58,959 worldwide overall 28.8 of 66 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Keith Rayner United States · #11,287 worldwide overall 25.1 of 46 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 5 Jacob O. Wobbrock United States · #26,176 worldwide overall 27.2 of 67 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Antti Oulasvirta Finland · #95,865 worldwide overall 28.6 of 83 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 James A. Landay United States · #11,586 worldwide overall 27.3 of 71 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Jodi Forlizzi United States · #18,211 worldwide overall 26.7 of 66 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Kasper Hornbæk Denmark · #56,740 worldwide overall 28.8 of 79 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Human-Computer Interaction alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 390,453 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 Human-Computer Interaction researchers

What are the most cited papers in Human-Computer Interaction?

The most cited paper in Human-Computer Interaction is "A Survey of Augmented Reality" (Ronald T. Azuma, 1997), with 9,848 citations. Next come "Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research." (7,711) and "A Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems Research" (7,661).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 A Survey of Augmented Reality Ronald T. Azuma · PRESENCE Virtual and Augmented Reality Aug 1997 9,848
2 Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Keith Rayner · Psychological Bulletin Nov 1998 7,711
3 A Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems Research Ken Peffers, Tuure Tuunanen, Marcus A. Rothenberger et al. · Journal of Management Information Systems Dec 2007 7,661
4 Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments: A Presence Questionnaire Bob G. Witmer, Michael Jay Singer · PRESENCE Virtual and Augmented Reality Jun 1998 6,358
5 Fog computing and its role in the internet of things Flavio Bonomi, Rodolfo A. Milito, Jiang Zhu et al. Conference paperOpen access 17 Aug 2012 6,098
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Human-Computer Interaction research done?

The largest centres of Human-Computer Interaction research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Tokyo (Japan), Shanghai (China) and Seoul (South Korea). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Marina del Rey, Wels and Rovaniemi.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 1.5k works
  2. 2 TokyoJapan 975 works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 670 works
  4. 4 SeoulSouth Korea 614 works
  5. 5 LondonUnited Kingdom 578 works
  6. 6 ChennaiIndia 485 works
  7. 7 HangzhouChina 404 works
  8. 8 NanjingChina 401 works
  9. 9 GuangzhouChina 393 works
  10. 10 Hong KongChina 384 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. Marina del ReyUS · 31.9 works30×
  2. WelsAT · 32.4 works15×
  3. RovaniemiFI · 23.7 works13×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Human-Computer Interaction than the world average.

See Human-Computer Interaction on the map

Human-Computer Interaction research by country

The best places for Human-Computer Interaction research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study Human-Computer Interaction?

Among universities, judged by research, Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University and University of Washington score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%mean 18.81%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Carnegie Mellon Univ…University of Washin…Stanford UniversityTsinghua University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now
50%
Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
20%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
5%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
15%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
5%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
5%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreRank in field (all time)Top 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States 90.2#1 (#3)21.6%8.1×149 -5.3%
2Stanford UniversityUnited States 83.0#2 (#2)18.7%1.3×83 +1.7%
3University of WashingtonUnited States 79.1#3 (#6)21.6%2.9×148 -9.0%
4Tsinghua UniversityChina 70.9#5 (#9)15.8%1.8×180 +38.8%
5Nanyang Technological UniversitySingapore 67.8#10 (#10)22.7%2.3×79 +25.4%
6University of TorontoCanada 67.7#15 (#11)15.9%1.5×132 +35.1%
7Georgia Institute of TechnologyUnited States 66.4#21 (#7)16.0%4.7×128 -2.0%
8Cornell UniversityUnited States 65.3#6 (#20)19.6%1.9×110 +22.2%
9Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 62.8#7 (#43)20.2%3.8×143 +110.0%
10Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 62.5#8 (#17)16.0%1.2×150 +23.3%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), citation excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in Human-Computer Interaction, country by country

Is Human-Computer Interaction research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 37% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts, Hand Gesture Recognition Systems and Persona Design and Applications.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Human-Computer Interaction as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.21% in 2024.

still counting0.10%0.20%0.30%Human-Computer Interaction0.23% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Human-Computer Interaction over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Human-Computer Interaction9.8% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

  1. Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts+82%
  2. Hand Gesture Recognition Systems+61%
  3. Persona Design and Applications+44%
  4. Gaze Tracking and Assistive Technology+18%
  5. Digital Communication and Language+14%
  6. Innovative Human-Technology Interaction+14%
  7. Usability and User Interface Design-5%
← shrinkingno changegrowing →

Growth in output from 2018-21 to 2022-25. Every topic is a page of its own.

What does Human-Computer Interaction include?

Virtual Reality Applicat…37kVirtual Reality Applications and Impacts: 37k fractional worksGaze Tracking and Assistive Technology: 26k fractional worksHand Gesture Recognition Systems: 24k fractional worksInteractive and Immersiv…23kInteractive and Immersive Displays: 23k fractional worksInnovative Human-Technol…22kInnovative Human-Technology Interaction: 22k fractional worksUsability and User Interface Design: 17k fractional worksDigital Communication and Language: 16k fractional worksPersona Design and Appli…Persona Design and Applications: 6,879 fractional works

Area is fractional works in that topic. Every name below is a page of its own.

Share who leads Human-Computer Interaction

Who leads Human-Computer Interaction, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead Human-Computer Interaction, for a post or a slide.

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1200 × 630 PNG, sized for social posts, drawn from the latest snapshot.

The leading institutions' badges6Each links to that institution's page and updates with every snapshot

Questions people ask

Who leads human-computer interaction research?

Carnegie Mellon University (United States) ranks first in Human-Computer Interaction on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Stanford University and University of Washington. On research quality in 2022-now, China, the United States and Germany rank highest in Human-Computer Interaction. By volume, China and the United States publish the most (8.4k and 7.1k works in 2022-now).

All 1,273 questions in the Question Catalogue

Discussion

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