Human-Computer Interaction at CMU

Jodi ForlizziJason Hong

Why are these hard to use?

HCI at CMU

Our mission is to create and evaluate effective, useful, and enjoyable experiences with technology, through engagement with the disciplines of computer science, social science, cognitive science, design, and engineering.

HCI at CMU

• Multidisciplinary research areas:• Enabling technology• Human assistance and well-being• Interdisciplinary centers• Learning science and technology• Social computing• Research through design

• ~20 faculty, ~40 PhD students

HCI at CMU

Our approach• User-centered design and development• Qualitative and quantitative study• Active role of prototyping• Labs and naturalistic settings• With the people who will use the product

HCI at CMU

Multidisciplinary research areas:• Enabling technology• Human assistance and well-being• Interdisciplinary centers• Learning science and technology• Social computing• Research through design

Enabling Technology

• Natural Programming• Alice: Making Programming Accessible• Automatic calibration of projectors• Human-Robotic interaction / Assistive robots• Context-aware computing• Human modeling• Models of attention• Tools for creating web-based mashups• Usable Privacy and Security

Making Mashups with Marmite

Anti-Phishing Training

Anti-Phishing Phil

Web Browser Warnings

• How effective are browser warnings?

Privacy and Security for Pervasive Computing

Privacy and Security for Pervasive Computing

Social Computing

• Footprints, use social nets vs global warming• Designing online communities• HomeNet• Mobile social computing• Information displays• MOVE• Impact• Glanceable email displays• My agent as myself or another

Social computing

Our research is developing social, context-aware applications that:

• Sense and provide information about people and their physical and social context

• Improve decision-making by creating applications that present information in appropriate ways

• Inspire positive changes in people’s behavior

Information display

Create visualizations that:• Build on the science of warnings• Integrate multiple pieces of data• Show trends and relationships• Avoid information overload

A Science of Warnings

See the warning?Understand?Believe it?Motivated?

Planning on refining this model for computer warnings

Information display

Design variables we have explored

• Abstraction

• Symbolism

• Complexity

• Social representation

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture. R

MOVE

Maps Optimized for the Vehicular Environment

• Goal: use cognitive resources efficiently in the context of in-car navigation

• Approach: systematic study of navigation activities, information design techniques, information optimization techniques

• Fivefold improvement over static maps

QuickTime™ and aAnimation decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

IMPACT

Improving and Motivating Physical Activity Using Context• Goal: allow people to see opportunities for increasing

daily activity, motivate them to change their behavior to do so

• Approach: ethnographic study with those who have set and reached or failed to reach goals to become more active, system design and evaluation

• To date, users increase awareness and motivation for increasing physical activity

Glanceable email displaysHow to design glanceable visuals for contexts of

divided attention?• Simple visuals are not preferred over complex

ones• Colored representations can be successfully

interpreted peripherally• Impact on performance small, impact on

preference large

My agent as myself or another

How would users interact with agents that resembled the user?

• Agents that look like the self are rated highly for credibility

• Seen as more credible when someone else creates the faces

• Self-esteem may play a role in the adoption of an agent that looks like the user or is simply familiar

• Design implications for agents that maintain social relationships with users

Conclusions

Multidisciplinary research areas:• Enabling technology• Human assistance and well-being• Interdisciplinary centers• Learning science and technology• Social computing• Research through design