Spring 2018 Colloquia
Design for Collaborative Survival: An Inquiry into Human-Fungi Relationships
Speaker: Jen Liu
Tuesday, April 10, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract:听In response to recent calls for HCI to address ongoing environmental crises and existential threats, this paper introduces the concept of听collaborative survival and examines how it shapes the design of interactive artifacts. Collaborative survival describes how our (human) ability to persist as a species is deeply entangled with and dependent upon the health of a multitude of other species. We explore collaborative survival within the context of designing tools for mushroom foraging and reflect on how interactive products can open new pathways for noticing and joining-with these entanglements towards more vibrant futures. In addition to highlighting three tactics鈥攅ngagement,听attunement and听expansion鈥攖hat can guide designs towards multispecies flourishing, our prototypes illustrate the potential for wearable technology to extend the body into the environment.
PEP (3D Printed Electronic Papercrafts): An integrated approach for 3D sculpting paper-based electronic
Speaker: Hyunjoo Oh
Tuesday, April 10, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: We present PEP (Printed Electronic Papercrafts), a set of design and fabrication techniques to integrate electronic based interactivities into printed papercrafts via 3D sculpting. We explore the design space of PEP, integrating four functions into 3D paper products: actuation, sensing, display, and communication, leveraging the expressive and technical opportunities enabled by paper-like functional layers with a stack of paper. We outline a seven-step workflow, introduce a design tool we developed as an add-on to an existing CAD environment, and demonstrate example applications that combine the electronic enabled functionality, the capability of 3D sculpting, and the unique creative affordances by the materiality of paper.
Beginner-friendly & programmable tools for live artistic applications
Speaker: Annie Kelly
Tuesday, April 3, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: Annie earned her B.S. in Computer Science here at CU and spends the majority of her free time as an amateur musician. Her research investigates the ways in which artists incorporate interactive technologies into live performances through participatory design and ethnographic approaches. She uses this research to inform the designs of better beginner-friendly tools to empower artists to develop these interactive systems themselves. During this talk, Annie will also share her work on a beginner-friendly tangible interfaces platform called ARcadia that she will be presenting at CHI this year.
Luminous Science
Speaker: Lila Finch
Tuesday, April 3, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: With a background in chemistry, art, and teaching, Lila鈥檚 research investigates how we can create learning environments that bring together the arts, sciences, and computing in high school and middle school classrooms. In this session, she will discuss her design goals for the Luminous Science project and how creating transdisciplinary classrooms might provide avenues for changing stagnant practices within those disciplines. She will talk specifically about a qualitative study of teachers' metarepresentational discussions, values, and practices that occured during a summer co-design workshop with a group of interdisciplinary teachers. In addition, she will describe the next steps in her ongoing research in those teacher鈥檚 classrooms.
Hybrid Spaces and Third Places for Scientizing with Mobile, Wearable, & Community Technologies
Speaker: Tammy Clegg
Tuesday, March 20, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: Emerging technologies have the potential to enable new forms of hybrid spaces for promoting scientizing experiences, where science practice can become deeply intertwined with learners鈥 everyday lives, cultures, and values. In this talk I will present one such genre of technology - live physiological sensing and visualization (LPSV) tools - that sense and visualize learners鈥 internal organ functioning (i.e., heart rate, breathing rate) in real time on an e-textile shirt and a large-screen display. I will present ways in which elementary school children鈥檚 scientizing practices developed as they designed new science experiments with LPSV tools and insights about ways LPSV hybrid spaces can be designed to support learners鈥 scientizing practices. Next, taking a community-based approach, I will present two听Third Place contexts for supporting place-based and cross-setting scientizing experiences. Oldenburg characterizes听Third Places as places in which informal public life develops dynamically. Building on this definition, I will discuss a process that I call Third Place Design, where I leverage co-design with community members (i.e., youth, parents, teachers, informal educators, community volunteers) and iterative integration of new technologies into Third Place contexts in two projects. From my Third Place Design process in these projects, I will identify ways social media and community-based technologies (i.e., large interactive displays) can support community scientizing practices in community settings.
Bio:听Tamara Clegg is an assistant professor in the College of Information Studies and the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership and at the University of Maryland. Her work focuses on developing technology (e.g., social media, mobile apps, e-textiles, community displays) to support life-relevant learning where learners, particularly those from underrepresented groups in science, engage in science in the context of achieving personally relevant goals. She seeks to understand ways such learning environments and technologies support scientific disposition development. Tamara鈥檚 work is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Studies, and Google.
Prototyping in the Wild: The Role of Prototypes in Companies
Speaker: Carlye Lauff
Tuesday, March 13, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: Prototyping is an essential part of product development in companies, and yet it is one of the least explored areas of design practice. There are limited research studies conducted within companies, specifically around the topic of prototyping. This research is a qualitative, empirical, and industrial-based study using inductive ethnographic observations to further our understanding of the various roles prototypes play in organizations. This research observed the entire product development cycle within three companies in the fields of consumer electronics, footwear, and medical devices. The guiding research questions are: What is a prototype? What are the roles of prototypes across these three companies? How do these roles change or manifest throughout the process? Through our analysis, we uncovered that prototypes are tools for enhanced communication, increased learning, and informed decision-making. Specifically, we further refine these categories to display the types of communication, learning, and decision-making that occur. We provide newly modified definitions of a prototype and prototyping based on this empirical work, which we hope expands designers鈥 mental models for the terms. Since prototypes are complex and dynamic artifacts that shape social situations during product development, we further uncovered how the primary purposes of prototypes changes based on the context of use. We explore five unique contexts, and show how the primary role of the prototypes shifts between a tool for communication, learning, and decision-making based on the context of use. Results also suggest that prototypes both influence the context and are simultaneously impacted by the context. These insights can help designers, project managers, and other stakeholders become aware of the many benefits and biases that prototypes create in common situations throughout the design process. This research is significant because it validates prior prototyping theories and claims, while also adding new perspectives through further exploiting each role of a prototype and how it changes over time and with use.
Bio: Carlye Lauff is a Ph.D. Candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the 糖心Vlog破解版 in the Department of Mechanical Engineering where she is co-advised by Dr. Mark Rentschler and Dr. Daria Kotys-Schwartz. Carlye鈥檚 research is in the field of Design Theory and Methodology, and her research studies the role and impact of prototyping on design teams in companies and academia. Carlye was a visiting NSF Global Research Fellow in the Centre for Design Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia during most of 2017. She holds a Master鈥檚 degree in Mechanical Engineering with a focus in Product Design from the 糖心Vlog破解版 (May 鈥15), and a Bachelor鈥檚 degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University (May 鈥13).
Shaping Human Computer Interaction With Programmable Materials
Speaker: Daniel Leithinger
Tuesday, March 6, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract:听As computers have become more powerful, mobile and connected, human computer interaction is transitioning away from desktops, and towards everyday objects like phones, car dashboards, wristwatches, household robots and smart thermostats. This trend offers exciting opportunities for interaction designers to rethink the shape of everyday objects and environments, but all to often it only results in sticking flat touchscreen displays onto their surface. In this talk, I will discuss alternatives in the form of future computer interfaces that are deformable, can transform their shape and communicate through touch. The research agenda to invent such devices includes engineering novel materials, sensors, and prototyping tools for designers. I will outline my past research in this area and talk about new projects I am starting at ATLAS.
Interacting with Distant Objects in Augmented Reality
Speaker:Matt听Whitlock
Tuesday, February 27, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: Augmented reality (AR) applications can leverage the full space of an environment to create immersive experiences. However, most empirical studies of interaction in AR focus on interactions with objects close to the user, generally within arm鈥檚 reach. As objects move farther away, the efficacy and usability of different interaction modalities may change. This work explores AR interactions at a distance, measuring how applications may support fluid, efficient, and intuitive interactive experiences in room-scale augmented reality. We conducted an empirical study ($N=20$) to measure trade-offs between three interaction modalities--multimodal voice, embodied freehand gesture, and handheld devices--for selecting, rotating, and translating objects at distances ranging from 8 to 16 feet (2.4m-4.9m). Though participants performed comparably with embodied freehand gestures and handheld remotes, they perceived embodied gestures as significantly more efficient and usable than device-mediated interactions. Our findings offer considerations for designing efficient and intuitive interactions in room-scale AR applications.
Ethics in education and a conversation about digital democracy, contracts and power
Speaker: Nate Beard
Tuesday, February 17, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: I'll briefly go over a听听about how we introduced ethics in a human-centered computing class last year, and then introduce current work we're doing at the听.听Are there times when听,听even when the听听could be high?听What's the future and current state of democracy and how can information communication technologies lead to democratic environments? We'll take a look at some of the research we're doing into terms of service and privacy policies and their implications, and then extrapolate some of these concepts out of researcher perspectives and into society by having an open conversation and brainstorming.
Fracking and Technical Momentum: Unconventional Oil and Gas Development in Colorado
Speaker: David Oonk
Tuesday, February 20, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: Unconventional oil and gas development across the United States, and in particular horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has largely contributed to a growing and robust energy production industry in the United States. The boom in the early twenty-first century was driven by the advent of this technology, one where its distributed production across suburban and rural communities created unique opportunities and challenges. Accompanying the economic benefits have been numerous conflicts with front-line communities and environmentalists over questions over its impact public health, local environments, infrastructure, and climate. This study takes a critical lens in understanding the technology of horizontal drilling and fracking through the science and technology studies literature (STS). Scholars in STS have, at times, described our relationship and use of technology as deterministic, where the efficacy of human decision-making is dwarfed by the technology, but the relationship with and use of this particular technology is not wholly deterministic, but rather it generates a 鈥榤omentum鈥 whereby its adoption and use creates a positive feedback which incentivizes expanding its use. This momentum is generated through distinct technological features, economic practices, policy-decisions, and social choices. At the meso-scale this momentum can be seen as the oil and gas industry enters a new region; one 鈥榩roven鈥 well quickly snowballs into hundreds and thousands over a few years. This study, by critically analyzing this industry through an STS lens, seeks to understand this emerging industry鈥檚 practices and anticipate its future plans and resulting conflicts with communities. The implication is that perhaps the conflicts we have already witnessed across the United States are only the beginning, and far more profound challenges lie ahead.
Communicating Robot Motion Intent with Augmented Reality
Speaker: Michael Walker
Tuesday, February 13, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: Humans coordinate teamwork by conveying intent through social cues, such as gestures and gaze behaviors. However, these methods may not be possible for appearance-constrained robots that lack anthropomorphic or zoomorphic features, such as aerial robots. We explore a new design space for communicating robot motion intent by investigating how augmented reality (AR) might mediate human-robot interactions. We develop a series of explicit and implicit designs for visually signaling robot motion intent using AR, which we evaluate in a user study. We found that several of our AR designs significantly improved objective task efficiency over a baseline in which users only received physically-embodied orientation cues. In addition, our designs offer several trade-offs in terms of intent clarity and user perceptions of the robot as a teammate.
Improving Collocated Robot Teleoperation with Augmented Reality
Speaker: Hooman Hedayati
Tuesday, February 13, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: Robot teleoperation can be a challenging task, often requiring a great deal of user training and expertise, especially for platforms with high degrees-of-freedom (e.g., industrial manipulators and aerial robots). Users often struggle to synthesize information robots collect (e.g., a camera stream) with contextual knowledge of how the robot is moving in the environment. We explore how advances in augmented reality (AR) technologies are creating a new design space for mediating robot teleoperation by enabling novel forms of intuitive, visual feedback. We prototype several aerial robot teleoperation interfaces using AR, which we evaluate in a 48-participant user study where participants completed an environmental inspection task. Our new interface designs provided several objective and subjective performance benefits over existing systems, which often force users into an undesirable paradigm that divides user attention between monitoring the robot and monitoring the robot鈥檚 camera feed(s)
Toys2Life鈥檚 鈥淪tories and Software鈥 STEAM Workshop Series
Speaker: Isaac Davenport
Wednesday, February 7, 1:00 - 3:00pm MT
The 鈥淪tories and Software鈥 STEAM workshop series was developed at the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado by Entrepreneur in Residence Isaac Davenport and his team at Toys2Life.听
What will we do?
-Play with a next generation smart toy system where kids select who talks to whom by moving radio tagged dolls and action figures closer together or farther apart.
-Write lines of dialog within the confines of tagged dialog models.
-Voice act and record the dialog for their character.
-Play their artificially intelligent toy character against their friends and built in characters.
-Write stories their character might tell other characters.
-Create emotionally appropriate dialog so their character can respond to other鈥檚 stories.
-Create fully scripted interactions between their character and other characters.
-In the most advanced workshops, kids can create choose your own adventure style branching dialog stories with various decision points and endings.
What will we learn?
-We will explore creative writing with purpose, the mechanics of language, the emotional content of language and what makes a character interesting as we create lines of dialog that fit the classifications within the dialog engine.
-We will try voice acting and dialog editing.
-We will apply computational thinking as we create files in Java Script Object
Notation (JSON) to feed into the algorithm of the artificially intelligent dialog engine.听
-Computer literacy skills through a JSON editor, file explorer, and audio recording software.
-We will practice our story telling skills as we create half contextual stories that can be told to any character and fully scripted dialogs with known characters.
-We will briefly discuss Blue Tooth Low Energy (BLE) radios and how the system knows which characters are getting closer to which other characters.
In the first workshop we will write, tag, and record a dozen phrases. Towards the end of the first workshop, we will see our character come to life as it talks to the other characters.听 Follow on workshop sessions will allow kids to make their character richer with: intermediate and advanced 鈥渃ontext free鈥 dialog lines, half contextual stories that can be told to any other character, fully scripted dialogs, and ultimately perhaps a branching dialog plot with various possible endings to the adventure.听 With enough polish their character may be added as part of the built in cast for other kids to enjoy.
The workshops are optimal for kids seven and over who have had some experience with computers.
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Technologies for a New Design Medium
Speaker: HyunJoo Oh
Tuesday, February 6, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract:听HyunJoo investigates how computing technologies can leverage exploratory construction to promote creative thinking and learning. She will describe her work on听paper mechatronics, a new design medium that integrates traditional papercrafting with mechanical design, electrical engineering, and computational thinking, and she will demonstrate her bottom-up computational tools to support paper mechatronics design.听 Children and other beginner designers use these tools to invent animated paper automata and other machines.听 Her work reveals the potential of this design medium to provide creative learning experiences.听 Evaluations in community workshops show how consciously designed technologies can open doors to exploratory construction that ultimately promotes powerful ideas.
Bio:听HyunJoo Oh is a PhD candidate in Technology, Media, and Society at the 糖心Vlog破解版 advised by Mark D Gross and Michael Eisenberg. Working at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and Design, she is a designer and researcher who studies and builds creative technologies that integrate computing and everyday materials. Her work has been published and exhibited at ACM SIGCHI conferences; several community makerspaces and public schools are using her work.听 She holds master鈥檚 degrees in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University and in Media Interaction Design from Ewha Womans University in South Korea.
Materials, Machines and Making: Synthesizing Industrial and Interaction Design
Speaker: Clement Zheng
Tuesday, January 30, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: Equipped with a background in Industrial Design and Human-computer Interaction, Clement's research investigates the intersection between the two practices for the design and production of tangible interactive systems. In this session, he will present some of the tools that he has built to support other designers as they engage in making prototypes for physical interfaces and interaction. In addition, he will share ongoing research for discussion and feedback, including a model to support holistic collaborations in the development of tangible interaction systems.
IoT / Big Data and Green Smart City
Speaker: Yoshiki Yamagata
Tuesday, January 16, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Bio: Yoshiki YAMAGATA graduated from the University of Tokyo (PhD in System Science). Since 1991, he works at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES, Tsukuba). Currently, he is studying about the climate risk management as Principal Researcher of Center for Global Environmental Research (CGER). He is also affiliated with IIASA (Vienna) and Institute of Statistical Mathematics (ISM, Tokyo). His recent research topics include: Land use scenarios, resilient urban planning and International regime networks. He has lectured at the University of Tokyo, University of Tsukuba and Hokkaido University. Internationally, he has served as Lead author of IPCC, Steering committee of 鈥淕lobal Carbon Project鈥 and Editorial board of 鈥淎pplied Energy鈥 etc.
Data Utilization for Product Recommendation Using Collected Data by IoT Technology
Speaker: Kanae Matsui
Tuesday, January 16, 11:30am - 12:30pm MT
Abstract: This short talk presents a recommendation system for providing relevant information regarding products that enhance human indoor comfort by data collected using IoT technology. The recommended information is derived from data obtained from a smart home, especially sensing data of electricity and environmental, which is one of the most diffused service components of the smart city. As the case study, the talk shows the system, which collects the data of electricity consumption and environmental. This data reflects human characteristics and preferences, e.g., colder rooms are preferred in summer and warmer rooms in winter, and assumes that electricity is consumed owing to the preferences of the residents.
Bio: Kanae MATSUI received a master and Ph.D. of Media Design degree in the Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Japan (2014). Dr. Matsui鈥檚 research interests are both indoor and outdoor sensing systems, and data utilization methods from technical and service levels. She is also leading smart city projects as a technical coordinator, such as the R&D project 鈥淒esign of Information and Communication Platform for Future Smart Community Services鈥 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) of Japan in Urawamisono, Saitama, Japan.听