HCI Research Group Seminars
Spring Term 2012
All seminars are on Thursdays in CSE/082 except where noted.
| Date | Room | Speaker | Title (Links to abstract) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 January | CSE/082 | Alistair Edwards | Relatively PC |
| 26 January | CSE/082 | ||
| 2 February | CSE/082 | Paul Cairns | The cool wall of HCI (Go to the wall) |
| 9 February | CSE/082 | Paul Cairns | Design criticism |
| 16 February | CSE/082 | Anna Bramwell-Dicks Dave Swallow |
The Big Question |
| 23 February | 3Sixty/RCH | John Robinson, Electronics | SWOT-ing the 3Sixty |
| 1 March | CSE/082 | Dave Swallow | 'Something about Contextual Inquiries and web developers' |
| 8 March | CSE/082 | Paul Cairns | 'Something about usability testing and experiments' |
| 15 March | CSE/102-3 | Sarah Wiseman | Designing for the task: What numbers are really used
in hospitals? #errordiary |
Abstracts
19 January
Alistair Edwards: Relatively PC
Relatively PC is a play on DVD, produced by the University of Dundee. The play illustrates the problems experienced by a group of older people who are trying to come to terms with modern information technology. The play is one of a series, produced in order to help with requirements ellicitation and to assist interaction designers to appreciate the needs of the variety of their potential users.
In this seminar we will view the play and then discuss it. It is to be hoped that the discussion will proceed on two levels. Firstly, what are the implications for design highlighted by the play? Secondly, is the technique a valuable one in attempting to improve design?
2 February
Paul Cairns: The cool wall of HCI
Borrowing an idea from a certain TV programme about cars , we will be constructing a Cool wall of HCI. Attendees should bring 2, or 3 or 4 examples of what they think is cool in HCI. We will then all vote as to where they belong, between Seriously uncool to Sub-zero.
9 February
Paul Cairns: Design criticism
- Bring some designs that have strongly influenced you. These may be because you love them. It may be because you hate them.
- Be prepared to talk for about five minutes on the design and then we can collectively discuss the value of the design and what insights we might gain from it and where this design lesson could be usefully applied elsewhere.
- Demos of the designs such as websites, videos, gadgets or whatever are welcome
What's a design? Anything - it could be a part of an interface, a whole interface, a whole system of doing things or just a little trick that some system does well. It could be a game, a gadget, a website a bit of kit. Whatever. But it's a design not a process so no modelling techniques or research methods.
16 February
Anna Bramwell-Dicks & Dave Swallow: The Big Question
'Green' issues are a current hot topic in HCI (and the world in general). Anna is strongly of the opinion that we must be the generation that fixes the world. Whilst Dave doesn't care and would rather live in comfort now, than bother about the future of the planet.
As such, we would like to promote a debate about green HCI issues. Do you think they're important? Which camp do you belong to? Do you agree with Anna? Or Dave?
The session will start with brief presentations by Anna and Dave (good versus evil, if you like). Then we will split into two camps to discuss opinions further. Followed by a debate amongst the whole seminar group.
Come along prepared to argue your side, but also with an open mind, ready to have your views changed.
Hopefully this will be fun. Controversial opinions welcome.
Disclaimer: this abstract was prepared by Anna; hence, the blatant bias
15 March
Sarah Wiseman:Designing for the task
In the English language, the letters of the alphabet do not occur with equal frequency. Some letters occur far more often than others, for example the letter ‘e’ occurs more frequently than ‘z’. In this talk we show that as with letters, digits too suffer from unequal distributions in some situations. Here we show that the most common digits being used when programming infusion pumps to administer drugs to patients are 0, 1, 2 and 5. The digit 9 is also frequently used to set an infusion to run at the maximum rate possible. With this information, we evaluate three current forms of infusion pump input with regards to the digits that are actually being programmed into the machines. We argue that the current number interface designs used in medical devices should take into account these findings in order to produce interfaces that are both more suitable for the task, and less error prone in use.
#errordiary
Understanding human error is an important part of making good choices about interaction design. In this paper we report an innovative approach to the collection of human error. Errordiary is an online repository of the funny, frustrating and sometimes fatal human errors that happen on a daily basis.
Summer Term 2012
All seminars are on Thursdays 13.15-14.15, in CSE/082 except where noted.
| Date | Room | Speaker | Title (Links to abstract) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 May | Jon Sandles, Robin Stafford, IBM | 'Something related to UX at IBM' | |
| 10 May | |||
| 17 May | |||
| 24 May | Angela Sasse, UCL | Security, usability, and productivity - why the current approach to designing security is bad news for all 3 | |
| 31 May | Anna Bramwell-Dicks | 'Something about music tempo and gaming experience' | |
| 7 June | |||
| 14 June | |||
| 21 June |
Abstracts