On Wednesday October 7th we had a series of short talks by final year students supervised by SACHI supervisors, explaining what they are working on (and why) for their final year dissertations.
Alexander Blundell presenting an early prototype of his mobile system
<!–Speaker: Miguel, Tristan, Mark-Jan, Uta and Aaron
Date/Time: 2-3pm Sept 15, 2015
Location: CS1.33a, University of St Andrews–>
Abstract:
This presentation consisted of a series of short HCI mini-talks which presented different areas and approaches to HCI. Students in Computer Science can view our slides here. Others interested in joining our HCI MSc program should visit this page.
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<!–Speaker: Anselm Spoerri, Rutgers University, USA
Date/Time: 2-3pm August 28, 2015
Location: CS1.33a, University of St Andrews–>
Abstract:
Conflicts occur in the peer-production process of Wikipedia and can culminate in “edit wars” for specific topics. This talk will present visualizations of the similarities and differences between the most controversial topics that have been identified in 10 different language versions of Wikipedia and discuss the dominant and shared themes of the controversies across languages and cultures. In addition, it will present visualizations of the most popular topics over time in the English version of Wikipedia and visually analyze the relationship between most controversial and popular topics. MORE
<!–Speaker: Pam Briggs, Northumbria University
Date/Time: 2-3pm Sept 29, 2015
Location: CS1.33a, University of St Andrews–>
Abstract:
Patients now generate a significant amount of online material about health. This raises questions about how we should design websites featuring patient knowledge and experience in order to ensure those sites provide a good match to patient needs. In this presentation I describe a structured participatory methodology for the development and evaluation of a set of patient experience websites that took place over three phases, consistent with experience based co-design: (1) a capture phase in which we worked with patients to understand their reactions to existing websites; (2) an understand phase in which we translated this information into a patient-engagement framework and accompanying set of design guidelines and (3) an improve phase, where we used these guidelines to create three new health websites that were then assessed as patient experience interventions in a range of empirical studies. MORE
<!–Speaker: Miranda Anderson, Bea Alex, Claire Grover, Uta Hinrichs and David Harris-Birtill
Date/Time: 2-3pm October 13, 2015
Location: CS1.33a, University of St Andrews–>
Abstract:
Today, many web services personalize their content, including Netflix (movie recommendations), Amazon (product suggestions), and Yelp (business reviews). In many cases, personalization provides advantages for users: for example, when a user searches for an ambiguous query such as “router,” Amazon may be able to suggest the woodworking tool instead of the networking device. However, personalization is rarely transparent (or even labeled), and has the potential be used to the user’s disadvantage. For example, on e-commerce sites, personalization could be used to manipulate the set of products shown (price steering) or by customizing the prices of products (price discrimination). Unfortunately, today, we lack the tools and techniques necessary to be able to detect when personalization is occurring, as well as what inputs are used to perform personalization.
In this talk, I discuss my group’s recent work that aims to address this problem. First, we develop a methodology for accurately measuring when web services are personalizing their content. While conceptually simple, there are numerous details that our methodology must handle in order to accurately attribute differences in results to personalization (as opposed to other sources of noise). Second, we apply this methodology to two domains: Web search services (e.g., Google, Bing) and e-commerce sites (e.g., BestBuy.com, Expedia). We find evidence of personalization for real users on both Google search and nine of the popular e-commerce sites. Third, using fake accounts, we investigate the effect of user attributes and behaviors on personalization; we find that the choice of browser, logging in, and a user’s previously content can significantly affect the results presented.
Bio:
Alan Mislove is an Associate Professor at the College of Computer and Information Science at Northeastern University. He received his Ph.D. from Rice University in 2009. Prof. Mislove’s research concerns distributed systems and networks, with a focus on using social networks to enhance the security, privacy, and efficiency of newly emerging systems. He is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award (2011), and his work has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the CBS Evening News.
This seminar is part of our ongoing series from researchers in HCI. See here for our current schedule.
<!–Speaker: Andruid Kerne, Texas A&M, USA
Date/Time: 2-3pm June 26, 2015
Location: CS1.33a, University of St Andrews–>
Abstract:
Centuries ago, the technology of movable type vaulted human consciousness and expression from oral performance—improvisational— to writing, fixed by letters and words. The Interface Ecology Lab investigates new technologies that transform human expression. We engage the human body with the digital. We use cloud and web to maximize impact. We investigate how curation, exploration, and body-based interaction support expression and ideation. MORE
On lions, impala, and bigraphs: modelling interactions in Ubiquitous Computing.
<!–Speaker: Tom Rodden, University of Nottingham
Date/Time: 2-3pm May 19, 2015
Location: CS1.33a, University of St Andrews–>
Abstract:
As ubiquitous systems have moved out of the lab and into the world the need to think more systematically about how there are realised has grown. This talk will present intradisciplinary work I have been engaged in with other computing colleagues on how we might develop more formal models and understanding of ubiquitous computing systems. The formal modelling of computing systems has proved valuable in areas as diverse as reliability, security and robustness. However, the emergence of ubiquitous computing raises new challenges for formal modelling due to their contextual nature and dependence on unreliable sensing systems. In this work we undertook an exploration of modelling an example ubiquitous system called the Savannah game using the approach of bigraphical rewriting systems.
This required an unusual intra-disciplinary dialogue between formal computing and human- computer interaction researchers to model systematically four perspectives on Savannah: computational, physical, human and technical. Each perspective in turn drew upon a range of different modelling traditions. For example, the human perspective built upon previous work on proxemics, which uses physical distance as a means to understand interaction.
In this talk I hope to show how our model explains observed inconsistencies in Savannah and ex- tend it to resolve these. I will then reflect on the need for intradisciplinary work of this form and the importance of the bigraph diagrammatic form to support this form of engagement.
Bio
Tom Rodden (rodden.info) is a Professor of Interactive Computing at the University of Nottingham. His research brings together a range of human and technical disciplines, technologies and techniques to tackle the human, social, ethical and technical challenges involved in ubiquitous computing and the increasing used of personal data. He leads the Mixed Reality Laboratory (www.mrl.nott.ac.uk) an interdisciplinary research facility that is home of a team of over 40 researchers. He founded and currently co-directs the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute (www.horizon.ac.uk), a university wide interdisciplinary research centre focusing on ethical use of our growing digital footprint. He has previously directed the EPSRC Equator IRC (www.equator.ac.uk) a national interdisciplinary research collaboration exploring the place of digital interaction in our everyday world. He is a fellow of the British Computer Society and the ACM and was elected to the ACM SIGCHI Academy in 2009 (http://www.sigchi.org/about/awards/).
Organisers:
Dr Miguel Nacenta and Dr Uta Hinrichs
Date:
Friday May 8th, 11:00 to 16:30
Location:
School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews
John Honey Building, North Haugh (KY16 9SX)
Open to the SICSA community, the University of St Andrews community
No charge, but limited places.
Registration:
Please sign up here at Eventbrite
Workshop By Prof Sheelagh Carpendale and Dr Samuel Huron
Workshop Focus and Motivation
We are moving into a new era of a data driven society. The collection and use of data abounds in science, industry, government, commerce, and also in our personal lives both at work and socially. Data is being continually collected, and being stored in increasingly massive data warehouses in the expectation of later analysis and use. The common belief is that through this data, we, as a society, can gain new insights and learn how to run our lives, businesses, cities, etc. more efficiently, and effectively. Yet society is increasingly, if only vaguely aware of the volume and variety of data that we are accruing on a daily basis. However, there is a gap, how can data lead to new insight?
To realise even the beginning of the promised potential of this data, we must become data literate. To be an effective data driven society this notion of data literacy must extend beyond the data literacy of a few experts to a wider population. We must each become, at least somewhat, data literate.
To test the waters of what might possibly constitute data literacy exercises, we will hold a workshop based on sketch based visualisation and constructive visualisation on May 8th 2015.
This will be a hands-on workshop where we will conduct exercises on data characterisation, visualisation data sketching, and constructive visualisation. There will be several short talks on basic data visualisation concepts, discussions, sketching sessions and constructive visualisation sessions.
In this workshop you employ the basic visual variables to construct meaningful representations, the dynamic manipulation of spatial positioning to enable spatial reasoning, and through these practices you will become aware of the wide variety of ways that people can think about data.
This workshop is designed for professionals, academics, and anyone with an interest in visualisation and data science. No programming experience required.
Bios
Sheelagh Carpendale is a SICSA Distinguished Visiting Fellow to Scotland this May. A Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary where she holds a Canada Research Chair in Information Visualisation and NSERC/AITF/SMART Technologies Industrial Research Chair in Interactive Technologies. She has received many awards including the E.W.R. NSERC STEACIE Memorial Fellowship; a BAFTA (British Academy of Film & Television Arts Interactive Awards); an ASTech Innovations in Technology Award; and the CHCCS Achievement Award. She leads the Innovations in Visualization (InnoVis) research group and initiated interdisciplinary graduate programs in Computational Media Design. Her research on information visualisation, large interactive displays, and new media draws on her background in Computer Science, Art and Design (Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr, Institute of Art and Design, Sheridan College, School of Design). She has found the combined visual arts and computing science background invaluable in her information visualisation research.)
Samuel Huron is Lead Designer at the Institute for Research and Innovation of the Pompidou Center (Paris) and Post doctorate researcher at the University of Calgary in the Innovis Lab. He successfully defended his Ph.D. on “Constructive Visualization: A token-based paradigm allowing to assemble dynamic visual representation for non-experts” at the Pompidou Center (Paris, France) in September 2014, under the supervision of Jean-Daniel Fekete, Vincent Puig and Sheelagh Carpendale. He graduated first candidate in 2009, Master in New Media Art in Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He participated in several design research groups at Ecole National Supérieur des Arts décoratifs. For over ten years he has carried out multiple creative web projects for a broad range of civic, cultural and corporate clients. His interest focuses particularly on computer human interaction and visual languages.
In early April, members of SACHI will presented their practice talks for papers accepted to CHI 2015, the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2015. This pre-CHI day, is a SICSA HCI event hosted in Heriot Watt University.
In this talk academic staff members working on topics related to HCI will present an overview of their research and how this relates to the HCI MSc modules and program.
