What is a PhD in Computer Science and HCI?

Computing science is an immature discipline and HCI still looking for its “theory”. Chris Johnson wrote 2 papers on What is Research in Computing Science? and What is a PhD in HCI? providing a high level introduction for PhD students to grasp the problems (applying standard to scientific empiricism to computing science) and challenges of the 2 disciplines.

I was aware of implementation driven research, mathematical proof techniques, empiricism, and observational studies as research methods in the field of Computer Science. However I discovered Hermeneutics as an alternative research methods that addresses the formality gap (i.e. the distance between mathematical models and reality). It stresses upon the analysis of a final implementation closely resembles proof by demonstration (field trials with real sets of data on existing architectures).a

One main problem of doing research in HCI is that its inter-disciplinary nature makes it difficult to identify clear guidelines or standards. Neither is it clear to know if HCI is a craft or an engineering discipline. Nevertheless, Johnson acknowledges a set of criteria that can be used to assess the quality of PhDs in HCI:

• A Grounding in Experimental Techniques: Candidate shows a proper grounding in experimental techniques lab-based versus contextual techniques
• A Grounding Design: the candidate contributes to the design and implementation of interactive systems.
• Understanding of inter-disciplinary research: demonstrate an understanding of inter-disciplinary research.

Of course, a PhD students should prepare for the standard questions that are asked at almost all HCI vivas:

Experimental work must be defended against accusations that it fails to explain real-world behaviours. Design innovation must be defended against criticisms that few industrial designers use the products of academic Computer Science. Inter-disciplinary research must be defended against technical criticisms drawn from each of the parent subjects.

Relation to my thesis: I am still evaluating the validity of the different approaches in computer science and understand how they apply to HCI. Empirical proof techniques is the obvious pick (with a dose of implementation driven research and observational studies) the goal being to map experimental theses with real-world analysis of situated interaction. Maybe my engineering background (and approach) will facilitates this bridge between designers and exploitable theoretical results (a current shortcoming in HCI).

Les transits et leurs Impedimentas

Dans le Thema Chronos de cette semaine:

Certes, il y a des spots Wi-Fi presque partout – au moins en aéroport –, mais rarement de l’alimentation électrique et les configurations pertinentes. Certes, il y a des billets électroniques, mais toujours la queue. Certes, on fait migrer les réseaux Wi-Fi et cellulaires dans les trains et les avions, mais la connexion est sporadique. Certes, on peut travailler sur son ordinateur en TGV, mais où sont les prises ? On proclame le voyageur roi en ne lui donnant que partiellement les moyens de son autonomie. D’où un manuel conséquent à l’attention du road warrior pour prévenir et négocier ces impédimenta technologiques. Mais sont-ils uniquement technologiques ?

Relation to my thesis: Trade-off issues between autonomy and ubiquity (broader bandwidth vs coverage, power supply vs coverage, accuracy vs coverage) are part of the nomad’s life.

Distance by the Time of Travel

Tom Carden has put together a couple of interactive maps of the London Underground system as a proof of concept to visualize distance by the time of travel.

Shortest paths are used to place the other stations – radius is proportional to time to travel, and angle should be correct for as-the-crow-flies direction on a map. The concentric circles are at 10 minute intervals.

Related to Carte de l’Accessibilité des Communes Suisses, Non-geographic Mapping and Personal World Map.

Relation to my thesis: Finding examples to visualize mobility data as time to travel, cost to travel, pain to travel, …

Google Dance and Lost Shoes

Google sends out spiders to crawl the web and archive every website it finds. These archived websites will be presented in the next update of the Google database. The update process is initiated every month or so. During the update, which takes several days, Google servers (www, www2, and www3) display different results. Whilst the results vary from server to server, they are said to be “dancing”, hence the name “Google Dance“.

In an Internet of Things futuristic scenario, we must consider that 2-3 days a months Google might not be able to find our shoes.

Positioning Accuracy and Social Status

From Google’s April fool:

Advisors are ready to answer your question for as little as $2.50 (per minute), usually within 24 hours and conceivably much, much sooner, depending on your levels of personal desperation and financial werewithal and the quality of your GPS signal and mobile plan.

Relation to my thesis: Funny to think that people might need to become aware of the position they provide in order to get good services. Will people with bad positioning systems or living in urban canyons become 2nd class citizens?

At the EPFL

At the EPFL to develop and prepare a new set of experiments with CatchBob!.

Deficient WiFi Awareness Sign

These signs announcing a deficient/poor WiFi connectivity are at the entrance of the 2 rooms I am TAing this semester.

Relation to my thesis: can’t get more explicit than that! My current workplace is a great inspiration for my work on ubicomp and uncertainty. Weekly fixed network failures (lousy dynamic IP assignment after 11am), uncertain WiFi connectivity (not due so much to a bad wireless coverage, but rather to poor security settings and congested routers). Note that similar failures happened in my previous workplace, with a buggy “corporate” VPN application that needed a once in a while “sudo” command to get back on track (if you did not know the magic command, an uninstall/install was the way to go). Wireless connectivity is not binary (on/off) and is not always related to coverage.

On the Introduction of Domestic Technologies into Households

A few interesting considerations to understand how domestic technologies are used and integrated into daily social life from Rode, J., Barkhuus, L., Challenges in Understanding Roles and Responsibility for Use of Home Networking Technologies, in workshop on Unraveling Complexities of Networked Devices in the Home, CHI 2006.

Home networks, nanny cams, tracking technologies are being incorporated into our homes. We aspire to achieve a social ideal with these technologies (humanist values put into technologies). This paper brings historical and ethnographical considerations on the integration of domestic technologies into the households (with a special focus on genders and social roles). It mentions a few issues that are worth noticing.

Efficiency and Taylorism
With technologies we are bringing the values of workplace efficiency from the workplace into the home. Many households applications are trying to reduce quantifiable metrics. This notion of an efficient home run like a factory is particularly prominent in the design of new domestic technologies and is a challenge overcome as we should value experience over efficiency. At the same time, it has been argued the amount of time American women spent each day on domestic work has been constant since before the industrial revolution despite the technological advances.

How technology is acquired by households
Women look to domestic technologies as a means of controlling situations and minimizing domestic chaos, whereas for men, technology is about control and a means to express expertise (technologies are purely functional, technologies are about features).

Often a role of “administrator” is implicitly given in a household. This leads to disturbing factors such as break downs when the “administrator” is not home or “misuse” by family members such as children.

Relation to my thesis: Introducing technologies into a household is often more about improving efficiency than the experience. We tend to bring workplace value of efficiency into the home. That is, controlling situations and minimizing chaos. The fact that time spent in domestic work has remained constant since industrial revolution suggests that domestic technology results in increased standards (like in the workplace). In that context, aren’t ubicomp humanist values of “calm technology” misplaced?

The dependance on an informal “administrator” of the home technological network is a source of disturbance when the person is not at home.