Research has the potential to move in many different directions. There are constraints, sure. But regardless of where one starts, multiple paths reveal themselves at each step. Choosing a path is crucial for making progress. Moreover, revisiting and refining the intentions motivating one’s travels down a particular path is important. There is always value in […]
I’m really excited about an introductory HCI course I’m developing (with some amazing collaborators) for the spring semester. For the last week or so, I’ve been working with several practicing designers to establish a set of core skills interns and/or entry-level designers ought to know in order to succeed in the workplace. Their comments and […]
Terrific (not-so-new) news! She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation published an article I wrote with Erik Stolterman about whether knowledge claims could be a useful way to distinguish research communities from one another. Here is the abstract: While much has been written about designerly knowledge and designerly ways of knowing in the […]
Early in the book HCI Theory, Yvonne Rogers takes a few pages to establish that research in the field is rapidly expanding/diversifying and that it’s difficult to pin down just what kind of field HCI is and what kind of research academics who identify as “HCI researchers” do. Somewhere in those first few pages, she […]
How is it that we distinguish between theorists and practitioners?
I co-authored an article that was published in ACM Interactions in January of this year. The article presented a conceptual framework that could serve as the bedrock for subsequent, substantive discussions in the HCI community. The title of the article is, “Slow Change Interaction Design: A Theoretical Sketch.” It was called a sketch in order to draw attention […]
Preface: I wrote this in an email exchange in early January, and the idea is still bouncing around my noggin. I’d love to get a dialogue going with anyone interested in any aspect of this content… Before reading further, you can watch this video: TEDx talk on Keeping Your Goals. If you don’t watch it, […]
Prompt: Several days ago, a Professor assigned us a reading. “A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity.” This is not the kind of reading I’m used to doing. It’s science. It’s (shudder) math. Nonetheless, I dove in with an agenda. We were asked (as a preface to reading) to “discuss the implications […]
design inquiry 