Human-Computer Interaction: Lights, Shadows, and Spotlights

Abstract

In the last decades, Information and Computer Technology (ICT) has become part and parcel of our lives, bringing undeniable advantages, especially in the workplace, both to individuals and organizations. Nonetheless, the increasingly massive use of ICT also contributed to a higher risk for maladaptive effects on quality of life, thus jeopardizing workers’ well-being. From the perspective of the organizational safety approach, the study of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is crucial. Despite this, so far, much attention has been paid to ergonomics and to technostress, but mostly from a sectorial perspective and disregarding several additional phenomena. In this conceptual paper, a multidimensional model able to go beyond the ergonomic features necessary to set a functional physical environment and facilitate the isomorphism mind-ICT is advocated. We point out a modern approach aimed at exploring additional dimensions underpinning HCI in the workplace, with a dual purpose: to highlight possible risk factors for maladjustment and to pave the way for intervention strategies to facilitate a healthy HCI.