Human-Centered Computing Retreat Summer 2000 John Canny 7/5/2000

Consequences of Ubiquitous Computing and Calm Technology: As computing becomes ubiquitous and invisible, it also ceases to be the focus of activity.

Consequences of Ubiquitous Computing and Calm Technology: Instead we have a constellation of devices, none of which should monopolize our attention.

Consequences of Ubiquitous Computing and Calm Technology: The focus shifts instead to people and the tasks they are working on.

Human-Centered Computing: We focus on learning, design, collaboration, knowledge creation... as human-activities, and how we can adapt the computing infrastructure to them.

Human-Centered Computing: On the flip side, computing is becoming a universal mediator of human activity. Its intrinsically interesting for social scientists. –E-commerce –E-romance –E-pets –Distance learning –Digital Divide... Newsgroups, portals, servers, speech recognition, computer vision provide new tools for social scientists to study human behavior.

Human-Centered Computing: …is collaborative research across “the great divide” between engineering and social sciences. Engineers benefit from understanding of the context their systems work in: e.g. who is talking... what is understood by the group... who is influential... how does the medium influence the interaction...? Social scientists benefit from an understanding of emerging technologies and their anticipated use. And they can use computer tools for new kinds of studies.

HCC … is an interdisciplinary “umbrella” project designed to incubate focussed research projects. Activities: –Seminar –Retreats: Summer ‘99, Spring 2000, Summer 2000, July 5-7 (this one). HCC Lab and lounge in Soda Hall –A formal space and an informal one designed for different styles of collaboration.

HCC sample topics: Design: context+ethnography, process and improvisation, design tools,… info. appliances. Education and collaboration: Enhancing student participation, team learning, computer as learning partner/mentor/guide. Multimodal Interfaces: Natural language, vision, speech, physical interfaces Context-Aware Computing: Context implies a rich understanding of social processes Social Sciences and Engineering: Sociometric analyses: newsgroups, . Impact of information technology on recreation, health, work...

Opportunities at this retreat: Identify challenges in use of computing today: –What tasks are hard when computer-mediated? –Where can computing provide value to users? –What are the important social processes that will benefit from use of IT. –How do technological and social systems interact? (sociotechnical systems) e.g. collaborative filtering... Understand social/psychological forces using IT: –Portal data and other logs provide a sharp microscope to study behavior at small or large scale. –CMC provides a rich space of media to study interpersonal communication - the medium can be dissected. –Appropriation - technology “routinized” and made part of normal daily practice.

Agenda: Weds Lightning Overviews: Interaction –Multimodal Interfaces: James Landay –Natural Language and Speech: Jerry Feldman –Designing Info-Rich Web Sites: Melody Ivory –Context-Aware Computing: John Canny Lightning Overviews: Education and Collaboration –Inscription-rich learning tools: Bernard Gifford –Computers and Design?: Alice Agogino –Teaching English using NLP: Jerry Feldman –Nomadic and Problem-Based Learning: James Landay –Enhancing learning in lecture classrooms: John Canny –Very large-scale conversations: Warren Sack Poster session #1

Agenda: Thurs AM Panel: Education and Collaboration –Alice Agogino, James Landay, Ken Goldberg, Warren Sack Panel: Multi-modal and Context-Aware Computing –James Landay, Christine Halverson, Ken Fishkin, John Canny Panel: Digital Divide and Social Issues: –Ilkka Tuomi, John Canny, Shannon Lawrence, Aaron Marcus

Agenda: Thurs PM 4-6 pm Breakout: Learning, Collaboration –Alice Agogino moderator 4-6pm Breakout: Interaction Design –Bill Verplank moderator 4-6pm Breakout: Digital Divide and Social Issues: –John Canny moderator 4-6pm Breakout: Context-aware/multi-modal: –James Landay moderator 7:30pm Poster session #2

Agenda: Friday AM 8:30-10am Breakouts continued (chance to switch) Reports from Breakout groups Feedback from Industry Visitors

HCC Core group: From Electrical Engineering Nelson Morgan From Computer Science John Canny Jerry Feldman James Landay From Psychology Jerry Mendelsohn Charlan Nemeth Dacher Keltner SIMS: School of information Management and Systems Marti Hearst Warren Sack Nancy Van House IEOR: Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Ken Goldberg From Mechanical Engineering Alice Agogino Education Bernard Gifford Marcia Linn Sociology Manuel Castells Claude Fischer