James Landay
Location: (Seattle, WA)
Personal Research Web Page: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/landay
Keywords: HCI, Ubiquitous Computing, Cross Cultural Design, Green Technology, Health and Wellness, Language Learning, Persuasive Design, User Interface Design Tools, Sketch-based User Interfaces, Automated Usability Evaluation, End-User Programming
Posted on: Friday, May 14th, 2010
Broad Research Area: HCI / CSCW, Mobile / Ubiquitous / Embedded Computing, Social Computing / Social Informatics
Research Interests:
Today’s interfaces limit our use of computers in two key ways: 1) they are optimized for short tasks rather than the long term activities we carry out in our everyday lives, 2) they constrain where and how computers can be used by not taking advantage of mobility, context, and natural human communication. Our research in activity-based computing addresses these issues. Our systems-oriented HCI research methodology is guided by an iterative design process that can be broken down into design methods, design tools, infrastructure, evaluation tools, and applications.
We are exploring topics in the above areas by developing applications in three domains: 2nd language learning, green behavior, and health and wellness. We are also interested in the cross cultural issues in designing for these domains.
Our approach is to observe target customers in the field, using both traditional and more novel means (e.g., context-aware ESM), and then use the resulting information as a basis for concept design. Designs are then prototyped and deployed on working devices in an iterative manner. Our current focus is on using activity and location inference technologies running on mobile phones to support new applications that help support customer’s everyday lives. We are also building the tools and design methodologies to support these applications as well as the evaluation methodologies required for deploying and testing these applications in the field over long periods (e.g., 3-6 months).
Postdoctoral researchers can explore topics in these areas in the field with me in Beijing, China for the first year and in Seattle for year two. I am happy to work with postdocs whose expertise might be in a range of different HCI subfields, e.g., technical HCI, field work, or design.
Contact Information:
email landay@cs.washington.edu
