Interactions

Remembering John E. Karlin, the “father” of the standard keypad

Posted: Thu, February 14, 2013 - 11:35:07

John E. Karlin died recently on January 28th, 2013. Most people probably have not heard of him, but he was one the people who laid the groundwork for our field, for human-computer interaction as a discipline. HCI emerged from the overlapping fields of industrial and cognitive psychology, human factors, and ergonomics. While much human factors research was conducted with military…

No place for Hobbits

Posted: Mon, February 04, 2013 - 3:49:42

ACM conference program committees may not violate the Geneva Conventions or international law. But they are unquestionably un-American. Presumption of innocence?—forget about it. “Until the rejection quota is reached, we must pass death sentences.” Double jeopardy?—bring it on! If the initial set of reviewers can’t agree to hang an author, have another program committee member read the submission after dinner…

On what holds UX back or propels UX forward in the workplace

Posted: Mon, January 28, 2013 - 2:43:34

Among the teaching that I've done: UX management courses and workshops via the University of California Extension, during conferences, and in companies. And a topic I have always addressed therein: What holds UX back and propels UX forward in the workplace—or to put it another way, what increases and what decreases the influence of UX on businesses. Last month, Dan…

Criticism and HCI

Posted: Thu, January 17, 2013 - 11:40:55

The turn toward design and humanistic thinking in the last decade of HCI reflects a practical need: to design interactions used in our everyday lives, from the workplace to the home, from the public to the private, and from Silicon Valley to rural areas all over the world. Designing for everyday life vastly increases the complexity of the design challenges…

On the question of human in HCI

Posted: Wed, January 16, 2013 - 11:43:23

WOW! I am so honored and so happy to be part of this amazing blogging lineup for interactions magazine. As some of you may know, I have been writing a somewhat whimsical column for interactions for several years, reflecting on research, design, and the emerging technoscapes that surround us everyday. While I will continue to contribute as a columnist for…

Building technology

Posted: Tue, January 15, 2013 - 11:15:54

Photo by Robert S. Donovan Lately, I've been in the trenches: hip-deep in a home renovation project. As I've been swinging a hammer on evenings and weekends, I've been struck by the discord between the kinds of technologies we use at home and the kinds of technologies we use to make home. Today I spent most of the day perched…

Wrong about MOOCs?

Posted: Wed, January 02, 2013 - 4:32:50

In July, I was sceptical. "We have no idea where this is going. Let’s stomp on the accelerator pedal and hold it to the floor!" My summary of the online education discussion at the biannual Computing Research Association Snowbird conference by Stanford’s President John Hennessy and Professor/Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller, Salman Khan of Khan Academy, and Coursera instructor Peter Norvig…

The importance of the social to achieving the personal

Posted: Thu, December 20, 2012 - 2:05:59

During a recent Sunday evening, I participated in the popular healthcare communications and social media (#hcsm) tweetchat. This weekly chat, started nearly four years ago, was the first regular hashtag healthcare chat on Twitter, but it is now only one of many. And many of this many bring together patients seeking help and support. Twitter conversations are just one of…